Ensuring Integrity Bill: push to soften proposed laws banning unions ‘largely workable’, says Christian Porter

The Morrison government seems set to give ground on proposed laws making it easier to ban union officials.

Senator Rex Patrick says a different approach that addresses minor breaches without disqualification or deregistration must be adopted. Picture: Kym Smith

Senate crossbenchers have urged the Morrison Government to soften proposed laws making it easier to ban union officials and deregister unions, calling on the Coalition to consider “extensive changes” including a demerit points scheme for law-breaking officials.

Attorney-General and Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter said amendments proposed to the Ensuring Integrity Bill by Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick in a Senate inquiry report released on Friday “appear largely workable”.

With Labor and the Greens opposed, the government requires four of six crossbench votes when the bill, and the Worker Entitlement Fund bill, are voted on by the Senate in about two weeks.

Senator Patrick said Centre Alliance could not support the Ensuring Integrity Bill in its current form as it was like using a “sledgehammer to crack a nut when only a nutcracker is needed”.

While a small number of unions and officials had not respected the law, he said the current bill would likely result in the disqualification of officials and or deregistration of unions that were “by and large, involved in good”.

Calling for the government to drop the proposed public interest test for union mergers, he said it was Centre Alliance’s strong view that law abiding organisations should be allowed to amalgamate without interference.

He said Mr Porter and employers should not be able to apply to deregister a union or ban an official. “It is Centre Alliance’s view that only an independent and impartial Registered Organisation Commissioner should be permitted to make such an application,’’ he said.

Courts should be given more judicial discretion when considering whether or not to make an adverse order while a provision allowing automatic disqualification for convictions in a foreign country should be scrapped.

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick also called for the government to drop its proposal to subject union amalgamations to a public interest test. Picture: AAP

Senator Patrick said the bill allows a court application for disqualification of a union official or deregistration of a union to be made for trivial or technical breaches of the law.

He said a different approach that addresses minor breaches without disqualification or deregistration must be adopted.

“A demerit points scheme similar to that used for drivers licences could be adopted,’’ he said.

“Under the drivers licence scheme, minor breaches are penalised but don’t give rise to licence cancellation. Significant breaches or repetitive minor breaches could.

“Like a drivers licence scheme, the passage of time should see a drop-off of accumulated demerit points. If a similar scheme is incorporated, an application to the court under this bill should only be possible once a particular demerit threshold is reached.”

Referring to the conduct of construction unions and its officials, Senator Patrick said the behaviour had been “by any standard incorrigible, never expressing regret, or contrition; never admitting wrongdoing or accepting fault despite judgments finding evidence to the contrary”.

Government members on the Senate committee supported the bill without amendment while Labor and the Greens produced separate dissenting reports opposing it.

Mr Porter said the government would “closely examine the suggestions” by Centre Alliance.

“I have been engaging with Senator Rex Patrick and, on the face of it, his suggested changes appear largely workable and a resolution is now much closer,” Mr Porter said.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomed Senator Patrick’s comments while calling for the bill to be passed.

“The suggestion, in particular, to amend the bill to mandate consideration of the gravity of the offences by the court has merit and we look forward to sharing feedback from employers on the prospect,” the chamber’s deputy director of workplace relations, Tamsin Lawrence, said.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said unions were concerned the Centre Alliance proposals would fail to address the “extreme and biased nature” of the bill.

“We thank the ALP and the Greens for opposing these bills outright and Centre Alliance for making it clear that the EI bill as it currently stands is unacceptable,’’ she said.

“We call on senators from Centre Alliance and Pauline Hansons’ One Nation as well as Senator Jacqui Lambie to stand up for working people and vote against these bills.”