Pauline Hanson doubles down on integrity bill criticism

Christian Porter has agreed to subject the proposed laws to a review after two years, but opponents are unmoved.

Attorney-General Christian Porter. Picture: Kym Smith

Pauline Hanson has doubled down on her criticism of the government’s Ensuring Integrity Bill, declaring she won’t back the proposed laws until the Coalition tackled white collar crime, ensured multinationals paid more tax and addressed the “selling out of our land to foreign ownership”.

Attorney-General Christian Porter reintroduced the bill into the Lower House, revealing the government would subject the proposed union-restricting laws to a review after two years of operation.

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Defending her decision to oppose the bill and deny the government the Senate numbers to pass it, Senator Hanson agreed with the ACTU that the laws would have impacted unions beyond the CFMEU, including those representing nurses, teachers, plumbers and electricians.

“Until the government starts addressing the real issues in this country about multinationals paying their fair share of tax, the white collar crime that is happening, the sell out of our land to foreign ownership...I am not going to go out there union bashing just for the sake of it,” she told Sky News.

She said the government “says they want integrity but where’s their integrity in a lot of these other areas”.

Senator Hanson also challenged the government over suggestions that One Nation had given written assurances to support the bill before last week’s vote.

She said if the government “wants to keep accusing me of lying”, it should “put up or shut up” and release any alleged texts. However, she said she had not given any written assurances.

Mr Porter agreed to a Greens proposal to subject the proposed laws to a review after two years of operation., but rejected ALP calls for them to be deferred until July, 2022.

The bill failed to pass the Senate last week after One Nation voted with Jacqui Lambie, Labor and the Greens against the proposed laws to make it easier to ban union officials and deregister unions.

Senator Lambie called for a raft of changes to the bill, including that it be subject to a review after 12 months. The Senate supported a Greens amendment that the proposed laws be subject to a “independent review” two years after they come into operation.

Senator Jacqui Lambie and Senator Pauline Hanson. Picture: AAP

The review would examine whether there was a need for further amendments relating to the ability to put unions into administration and subject union mergers to a public interest test.

The bill’s administration provisions were cited by Pauline Hanson as a reason for One Nation voting against the bill.

The review would also examine if the Registered Organisations Commissioner had acted as a model litigant in disqualification and deregistration proceedings, and whether it had focused on matters that relate to systematic patterns of conduct.

“The bill introduced into parliament today incorporates the sensible and constructive amendments, safeguards and protections proposed to a previous iteration of the bill by the Centre Alliance Party and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party,” Mr Porter said.

“It also incorporates a provision requiring the operation of the bill to be reviewed in the near future, as suggested by the Greens and the Jacqui Lambie Network.”

Morrison ‘refused to listen to message’

Opposition industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke said the Senate voted down the bill last week because it was “bad for teachers, nurses, cleaners, firefighters and other Australian workers who just want a decent pay rise and a safe workplace”.

“But Morrison has refused to listen to the message. Driven by a blind hatred of unions, he is displaying breathtaking arrogance by reintroducing the same bill that was rejected just a few days ago,” Mr Burke said.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said it “says everything about the arrogance and desperation of this Government that it is reintroducing before Christmas a Bill threatening the rights of millions of working Australians”.

“They are left exposed as having no plan to deal with the criminality of banks and corporations engaged in wage theft,” she said.

“The union movement has been fighting this bill since the current Prime Minister was a loyal member of Malcolm Turnbull’s cabinet. We will not stop now, we will continue to fight this bill and this Government until it is defeated.”

Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn said the bill’s failure to pass last week was a “huge blow to industry confidence (and) its reintroduction provides some hope that an end to bullying and thuggery deployed by building unions remains in sight”.

“This isn't a union busting bill as many make out and there are lots of good unions out there — we just want the unions in our industry to be like those in every other industry,” Ms Wawn said.

“The historical data shows that building unions will likely rack up around $450,000 in court fines and penalties between now and the resumption of sittings in 2020, with the cost to industry being many times higher than that. That’s almost half a million dollars of union members money which could be avoided if only building unions played by the rules like most other organisations seem able to do.”

Mr Porter told parliament that there were examples of “quite horrendous conduct against women by the officers of the CFMEU, including intimidating female police officers, spitting at female building inspectors and making abhorrent threats about sexual violence to workplace inspectors”.

“If existing sanctions are not working effectively to deter law-breaking, you need stronger sanctions,” he said.

“If penalties are not working, the courts need other options. It’s clear that’s the case when it comes to registered organisations. Courts need to be able to disqualify officers who keep breaking the law – removing them from office or alternatively suspending or taking from the organisation itself the rights and privileges of registration.

“In essence, that it what this Bill does. How this approach can be portrayed as an attack on unions, much less their hard working members, is difficult to see – unless of course one views these organisations as above the law and therefore beyond reproach.

“Any such view is at best, horribly misguided and at worst, a genuine threat to the even-handed supremacy of the rule of law.”