Porter plan to push union-busting bill

Senior union officials face being banned if their union repeatedly breaks the law under a new demerit points system.

Sally McManus, ACTU secretary, claims that officials could be banned or a union deregistered for a minor paperwork breach Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Senior union officials face being banned if their union repeatedly breaks the law and they do not take reasonable steps to prevent the conduct, under the new ­demerit-points system the government is supporting to try to get its union-busting ensuring integrity bill through parliament as early as this week.

As revealed by The Weekend Australian, the new system would involve a 180-penalty-unit threshold for a law-breaking unionist and could lead to Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union officials being banned for just one breach of civil law while other officials would be exposed to ban applications for multiple, minor breaches.

The government is discussing amendments with Centre Alliance that would also see an official facing a ban application if their union committed breaches that totalled 900 penalty units. The 900 units could be accumulated by the union over a decade and apply to unlawful conduct that occurs after the bill became law.

Under the proposed amendments with Centre Alliance, the minister or employers would no longer be able to make banning or deregistration applications. The Registered Organisations Commission would be able to apply to the Federal Court for a banning order once an official was found guilty of legal breaches that totalled 180 units, or a union reached a combined 900 units.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said he expected the CFMEU and its officials would face deregistration and disqualification applications “in the near ­future’’ given its current business model of contravening laws, on ­average, three times a week.

“If the bill was passed in its present form and the CFMEU continues on its behavioural course, I think you would have seen a commencement of legal actions which could ultimately lead to an application to disqualify officials within weeks, and to deregister a union within a month or two,” Mr Porter said.

“In the type of modified form that Rex Patrick suggested, I think you would still see a commencement of legal actions which could ultimately lead to an application to disqualify officials within weeks, and to deregister within three months. This is simply because of the extraordinary pace and scale of their unlawful behaviour on construction sites .’’

Under another proposed amendment, a public-interest test to be applied to all union mergers would only apply to unions with a track record of unlawful conduct.

Senator Patrick rejected ACTU claims that officials could be banned or a union deregistered for a minor paperwork breach. He said an official would generally be exposed to a banning order if they committed three breaches carrying 60 penalty units each.

“(Centre Alliance) wants this bill to target the conduct mentioned in so many judgments against some of the more militant unions,” he said.

“We cannot have a system where judges are basically saying, this is just the cost of business, we give the maximum fine, but in ­reality, the penalty is insignificant compared to the gain obtained ­because of the unlawful conduct.

“You can’t allow that and that’s what we are targeting. The position of the ACTU has been one of do not pass this bill under any circumstances so, in that sense, they have been unreasonable in that approach.

“My job has been to find a sensible pathway through the problem space where the bill as it currently stands is quite unacceptable but I accept that something needs to be done.”

The government ­requires four of six crossbench votes to pass its legislation.