Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I feel like it is Groundhog Day.

Senator Lines interjecting—

Senator Lines, you were not in the 43rd Parliament. Issues around the building and construction industry and this side of the chamber's desire to fix and address the lawlessness that is inherent in the industry, particularly in my home state of Victoria, are falling on deaf ears with the unity ticket opposite. The Greens and the ALP are fighting for the hearts and minds of the trade union movement, slugging it out in inquiry after inquiry, contribution after contribution. Who is going to end up with the support at the end of the day? It is quite a tussle.

Over on this side of the chamber I think it is quite clear whose side we are on. We are on the side of the honest workers, the honest trade unions, the honest employers, those that are interested in ridding the building and construction industry of corruption and intimidation. I can briefly go through a list of examples in my home state where the current system is not working. It is not working for honest workers and it is not working for employers either. Both the Greens and the Labor Party failed to recognise or admit in their contributions to this debate here today that the legislation seeks to deal with corrupt behaviour and that it does not matter who is doing it, it applies equally, whereas they are only focused on how it is going to affect their union mates. I think we really have to ask what protection racket is actually being run.

I think of Boral Cement being black-banned and the effect on their industry and their business. I look at the Grocon building site in central Melbourne, where police horses were punched and witnesses said police used capsicum spray on protesters. There had been no work at the Myer site since last week, a delay that has cost Grocon $371,000 a day. Similarly with the Werribee picket line and the city west water project: a $40 million project and no work. At the desalination plant in Victoria, with the stoppages there and the impact on the Victorian budget and household costs for water, we have an issue. And an article headed 'Behind the Coles picket line, food may go off', in The Age on 20 June 2012, said about 250 of the Somerton National Distribution Centre's 467 permanent employees decided to go off the job while at least $32 million worth of food and alcohol stuck in the Somerton warehouse could go off, with the impact that has on that business's viability.

Senator Wright talks about free and democratic unions. I could not agree more with the role of unions in ensuring safe workplaces throughout our nation's history. But when the CFMEU and the AMWU were ordered by the Supreme Court not to picket, not to prevent free access to the site in a WA family business, they defied it and proceeded onto the site. So the courts can do what they like, but the sense of lawlessness inherent in the Australian union movement at present requires a tough cop on the beat, the Building and Construction Commissioner and draconian legislation, as Senator Lines likes to call it. That is exactly the type of legislation that is required to address the lawlessness inherent in the construction industry. We are interested in ensuring that honest workers and honest employers get to work in an industry where corruption does not abound.

The Labor Party and the Greens have joined together and abused Senate processes for the first time in 17 years by sending legislation to a committee which had been examined in the previous parliament. It had also been through a comprehensive consultation process through our own coalition policy development process, where the shadow minister at the time did consult with unions and employer organisations to come up with a comprehensive policy to address corruption within the building and construction industry and produce the bill. I know it is odd that we actually go through a consultation process to produce well-designed policy! You do not like to hear it, but maybe it is a methodology you should consider involving yourself in. Here we are, having had roughly 19 submitters in December and roughly 19 submitters today. It is just a delaying tactic, looking after your union mates.

Debate interrupted.