What a dismal sight from an unholy alliance. Shadow industrial relations minister Brendan O’Connor crying crocodile tears for the country’s most militant union, the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union, led by his brother Michael.
Last week, O’Connor the politician said Labor believes in “one set of laws for all workers. It is fundamentally unfair that builders and construction workers have fewer rights than other Australians”. Dry your eyes, princess.
His brother oversees an industry like no other in Australia. Its well-documented history is rife with intimidation, standover tactics, bullying and contempt for laws. Yet Labor is hellbent on getting rid of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and special-purpose laws aimed at cleaning up this industry.
When will the Morrison government take the fight to Labor over this grand scam? The Prime Minister could start by making clear that Labor’s position is premised on an outrageous and incorrect claim that the country has “one set of laws for all workers”.
Our legal system is built around sectoral regulation for different industries. We enact laws that are fit for purpose by tailoring them to meet the particular behaviour and individual needs of industries. Special-purpose industry regulators exist everywhere too. The Medical Board of Australia has extensive powers to regulate the conduct of doctors, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia has strong powers over nurses, state law societies govern the activities of solicitors with a heavy hand. Even plumbers and electricians must be licensed.
Add other pertinent facts next to O’Connor’s nonsensical claim that the construction industry is no different to any other. Since 2016, the ABCC, through the courts, has secured penalties of $7.9 million against the CFMEU and its officials, $3.1m in the last financial year alone.
Yesterday the Federal Court imposed penalties on the CFMEU for ordering a blockade of a crane hire company that negotiated an agreement with workers that the union did not like. The court fined CFMEU national vice-president Michael Ravbar personally. Ravbar sits on Labor’s national executive. The court described the union as “recidivist” with a “continuing defiance of the law”.
A fortnight ago the full Federal Court imposed a record $1.7m in penalties against the CFMEU for unlawful action by 1000 workers at the Barangaroo site in Sydney in 2014. The court previously found that the CFMEU forced a shutdown to support a union delegate who was suspended after throwing a punch at a site manager and threatening to kill him. Workers were intimidated, and an inspector was called “a f..king grub” and “lower than a pedophile” by a union organiser. The court pointed to the union’s “intractable behaviour” and “substantial contravening history”.
Last December, former CFMEU boss and Labor hotshot Dave Hanna was convicted in Brisbane’s District Court for destroying tonnes of documents sought by the trade union royal commission.
A week earlier the Federal Court imposed $250,000 in penalties on the construction union and $44,000 on union official Joe Myles for threatening a blockade and other unlawful conduct at a Melbourne level crossing project.
The day before that, the High Court refused the CFMEU leave to appeal a Federal Court decision imposing the maximum penalty of $306,000 on the union for unlawful conduct again by Hanna, the former Queensland president. Hanna broke right of entry laws, threatening to “bury” a mobile phone in a site manager’s throat. The federal circuit court judge described the union as “the most recidivist corporate offender in Australian history”.
Last October, the Federal Court imposed a $313,000 penalty on the CFMEU for unlawful conduct towards Sydney concreting companies. Justice Geoffrey Flick said the CFMEU’s conduct showed that it regarded penalties for illegal behaviour as a “cost of doing business”.
The full Federal Court has compared the CFMEU’s “systemic unlawful conduct” with the criminal history of the Builders Labourers Federation. Bob Hawke deregistered the BLF in 1986. Yet in 2019 Bill Shorten allows the most militant union in the country to use its naked political clout and its considerable financial power to extract political protection from the ALP.
Since 2000-01, Labor has pocketed more than $11m from a union that has broken the law or been in contempt of court more than 100 times. And Labor Party policy overseen by O’Connor the politician will enable the CFMEU, run by O’Connor the union leader, to return Australian building sites to a reign of industrial terror after an election win. It is beyond unconscionable. If a brothers-in-arms gig involved a Coalition minister and a sibling boss at, say Rio Tinto or BHP or one of banks, with donations and influence flowing to secure special favours, we would scream about political corruption.
So where is the fight by the Morrison government? The Coalition sorely needs political warriors who can point to the swath of new draconian penalties that apply solely to those who work in the financial services industry, as one of many examples of special-purpose regulation that apply to troubled industries. Under new laws, financial services licensees will be hit with huge fines if they fail to provide services “efficiently, honestly and fairly”. Can you imagine the unions’ squealing if they had an obligation to act “efficiently, honestly and fairly”?
Big fines apply to financial services licensees who fail to notify the Australian Securities & Investments Commission of any significant breach of financial services laws. Imagine unions having an obligation to confess their breaches of the law. The CFMEU would have to create a 50-person division to comply with this obligation alone.
And there are serious jail terms of up to 15 years for acting in bad faith, abusing a position or failing to comply with certain reporting provisions. What would unions say if they had a duty to act in “utmost good faith”? ASIC has special-purpose powers to supervise compliance with financial services laws, including a power to examine individuals under oath and in private, a power to require production of books and records, a power to hold hearings in public or private. And ASIC can ban or disqualify individuals from the financial services industry.
O’Connor’s incorrect claim about “one set of laws for all workers” points to Labor’s sneering contempt for voters, imagining that we are too stupid or too busy to notice Labor’s rank hypocrisy.
Shorten supported industry-specific laws imposing rigorous accountability obligations on bank executives where the special-purpose regulator, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, can disqualify errant bankers from the industry. Directors have an obligation to deal with APRA in “an open, constructive and co-operative way”. But Labor rejects similar standards for union leaders. How can Labor get away with this scam? Because, by and large, politicians can lie about their policies without legal penalty. Politicians are not subject to laws that apply to others prohibiting misleading and deceptive conduct, and they want to keep it that way. But that is another story.
At the very least the Morrison government should ensure voters understand O’Connor’s con job, so that there might be a political penalty imposed on Shorten and Labor at the ballot box.
janeta@bigpond.net.au
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