Election trigger registered organisation bill passes Senate

ACCI chief James Pearson seizes on union bill victory to urge the parliament to pass the revived ABCC legislation.

Derryn Hinch and Nick Xenophon Team in the Senate last night. Picture: AAP.

Chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, James Pearson, has said that in pushing forward the registered organisations bill, the government was “right to take action to prevent the misuse of members’ funds” and “improve accountability and transparency among registered organisations.”

He seized on the passage of bill through the Senate to urge the parliament also to pass the revived Australian Building and Construction Commission.

“The regulation of registered organisations must not unfairly disadvantage registered organisations that do the right thing,” he said.

“I call on the Senate to now pass the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation. The opportunity to stamp out union thuggery and misbehaviour on Australian worksites, and to return productivity to the sector, is within their reach. I hope Senators realise that the standard they vote for is the standard they accept.”

Chief executive of the Australian Industry Group Innes Willox welcomed the passage of the registered organisations bill, saying the findings of the Heydon royal commission into union corruption and governance had “demonstrated that the existing registered organisation laws needed to change.”

He also pressed the parliament to now pass the remaining double dissolution trigger bill to revive the ABCC.

“Now that the Registered Organisations Bill has been passed. Parliament’s focus rightly shifts to the ABCC bill,” he told The Australian. “It is critical that the ABCC Bill is passed without delay in order to deliver the vital reforms to the building and construction industry and the broader community that are necessary.”

“Without its passage the unlawful and inappropriate conduct being constantly and widely displayed by construction unions will continue unabated.”

Opposition workplace relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor suggested on ABC radio the government’s reforms would not be long-standing, arguing that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission would have been a better regulator.

He also warned it was premature to think the government had the numbers in the upper house to pass the ABCC legislation, saying the concerns of the crossbenchers were more “wide ranging.”

He said the government’s proposed building code would see employers being “blacklisted” by the government, preventing them from being able to tender for commonwealth work.

“There is a building regulator currently now, but the one that’s been suggested is excessive and would use undemocratic powers and there’s nothing like it in the Western world,” he said.

Registered organisation bill passed in Senate

The government has secured a key industrial relations victory over Labor by securing upper house support to pass its legislation to create a registered organisations commission to oversee the governance of union and employer bodies.

The legislation was passed with crossbench amendments from Derryn Hinch and Nick Xenophon to improve protections for union whistleblowers and an undertaking to extend these to corporate and public sector whistleblowers over time.

The only crossbencher to oppose the initiative was Tasmania’s Jacquie Lambie while Labor’s amendments, including changes that would have made the corporate regulator responsible for the oversight of union and employer groups, were also defeated.

Senator Cash told ABC radio this morning she was delighted at the “massive win for the two million Australians” who she said were members of registered organisations and attacked Labor for its proposed changes.

“We all know they’re dictated to by their union masters,” she said. “I think it was a great shame they could not put the public interest, the national interest ahead of their politics and vote for enhanced transparency and accountability.”

The legislation passed with the support of Derryn Hinch, the Nick Xenophon Team and One Nation with Senators Hinch and Xenophon securing the amendments to protect and compensate union whistleblowers.

The government also extended an undertaking to extend the same or even stronger protections to whistleblowers in the corporate and public sectors with legislation to be introduced by December 2017.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash issued a media release late last night hailing the passage of the legislation as a key win for the government, saying it would bring officials from key organisations including unions into line with the same standards and penalties that apply to company directors under Corporations Law.

“It will mean stronger laws to prevent honest members being ripped off to prevent a recurrence of the numerous scandals that have beset various registered organisations in recent years, such as the HSU, the AWU and NUW,” Senator Cash said.

“There are 47 unions and 63 employer groups in Australia with annual revenue of $1.5 billion and assets worth $2.5 billion,” she said. “I comment the crossbench Senators who negotiated constructively to deliver good policy in the national interest.”

Former employment minister Eric Abetz released a statement saying the bill enacted a Coalition policy initially released in April 2012 -- more than a year before the 2013 election -- and argued it was evidence the new Senate was more amendable than the last.

“On a personal note, I am pleased that the legislation has passed largely unchanged from that which I introduced following the 2013 election,” he said. “The Registered Organisations Commission, along with the new legal framework, will ensure that honest union members can have confidence that their hard earned money will be protected.”

The government legislation to extend whistleblower protections into the corporate and public sectors must be introduced by December 2017 and dealt with no later than June 30 2018 according to the undertaking provided by government.

Senator Xenophon said the amendments secured by himself and Senator Hinch would see Australia go from “some of the worst whistleblower protection laws in the world to arguably the best.”

Senator Hinch insisted he was pro-worker and anti-corruption, arguing it was time for a fulltime independent regulator for a sector racked with scandal.

He said the bill wasn’t an attack on unions but said he didn’t want to see a repeat of the scandals in the Health Services Union where officials like former Labor MP Craig Thomson misused funds.

“I was actually lying in a hospital bed and watching members of his old union ... doing menial tasks for about I guess $15 an hour,” he said.

“I watched a middle-aged European woman with a mop cleaning up after a burst colostomy bag and I thought at the time her union fees for the year would probably be around the $500 Thomson spent on one prostitute in one assignation.”

NSW Labor Senator Doug Cameron lashed out, accusing Senator Xenophon of dropping the ball by not demanding the government immediately extend whistleblower protections to the corporate and public sectors.

“The whistleblowers in the banks can wait until some time after 2017 if you ever get a result out of this mob,” he said. “What have you got? You’ve got a committee, you’ve got an expert panel, you’ve got some legislation in 2017 that nobody knows what it is.”

“If you were fair dinkum, you would’ve fixed this tonight and corporations would’ve been facing the same stringency as the Australian trade union movement.”