Federal Election 2016: Coalition to ban union-employer payments

Unions and employers could face penalties for doing the type of secret deals unveiled during the Heydon royal commission.

Minister for Employment Michaelia Cash and Shadow Minister Brendan O'Connor in debate at the National Press Club in Canberra today.

The Turnbull government has announced a plan to implement, if re-elected, the “overwhelming majority” of the recommendations made last December by former high court judge Dyson. Heydon in the final report of his royal commission into trade union governance and corruption.

The announcement comes six weeks after Malcolm Turnbull called a double dissolution election in a bid to pass two key industrial relations measures stalled in the Senate and which are aimed at improving union governance and upholding the rule of law on construction sites.

In total, the government has today committed to 48 recommendations of the Heydon Royal commission but is leaving open the door to making picking up further recommendations later on in the election campaign.

All of the recommendations it has embraced so far relate to the revival of a tougher building regulator in the form of the Australian Building and Construction Commission as well as the establishment of a Registered Organisation Commission that will be charged with the oversight of union and employer bodies.

Speaking at a debate in the National Press Club in Canberra with her Opposition counterpart, Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said the plan meant a re-elected Turnbull government would hand the courts the power to remove union officials from their positions if they were found to have repeatedly breached workplace laws.

“If… a person repeatedly breaches Corporations Law, they get banned by the courts from being a company director. If a person repeatedly breaches the road rules, they get banned by the courts from holding a drivers licence. The same principle should apply in the workplace,” Senator Cash said.

Senator Cash also committed the government, as widely expected, to banning “secret payments” from employers to unions in which money changes hands during the negotiation of a workplace agreement in what the Heydon royal commission dubbed “corrupting benefits.”

“It is an obvious conflict of interest for money or reward to be changing hands between an employer and a union at the same time that they are negotiating a workplace agreement and when they both have responsibilities to their work force,” she said.

But Labor’s workplace relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor took aim at the government response, saying it had not formed the basis of the double dissolution election called for July 2 and could not therefore be passed at a joint sitting of parliament.

Mr O’Connor said there was time to have released the response earlier on, suggesting it could have been done when Mr Turnbull prorogued the parliament to put legislation to revive the Australian Building and Construction Commission to the parliament.

“This is a lazy and incompetent government that did not do the work,” Mr O’Connor told the National Press Club. “This has been a phoney war that this government has embarked upon.”

Master Builders Australia chief executive Wilhelm Harnisch said the government response to the Heydon royal commission was welcome but noted it was “a bit late.”

“The government has now focussed on the ABCC and industrial relations. It’s important because it will give heart to those people in the workforce, all the contractors, the subcontractors that this issue being discussed as a key election policy, a key issue for the electorate to think about when they cast their vote on July 2,” he said.

“Master Builders therefore welcomes the announcement, albeit a bit late.”