Federal election 2016: triple fine threat looms with ABCC

IR reforms that could send Australia to the polls in July seek to triple penalties for unionists caught breaking the rules.

 

Radical industrial relations reforms that could send Australians to the polls in July seek to triple penalties for militant unionists caught breaking the rules and restore a powerful regulator whose reach extends beyond building sites to the nation’s ports, shipping routes and roads.

The Australian can reveal the bill, set for debate at a special sitting of the Senate in April announced by Malcolm Turnbull yesterday, will create a powerful building industry regulator with a wide jurisdiction covering the Maritime Union of Australia and the Transport Workers Union as well as the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and Australian Workers Union.

The bill to reinstate the ABCC — the Howard-era regulator scrapped by the previous Labor government — raises the maximum fine available to the court for unions that breach industrial laws from $54,000 to $180,000 per breach.

The government has argued that penalties are merely being “restored” after Labor cut the maximum fine that could be sought by 66 per cent when it replaced the ABCC with the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate, also known as Fair Work Building and Construction.

But critics yesterday said moves to restore the ABCC were an attempt to make “building unionism impossible”.

The CFMEU is in the process of merging with the MUA to bolster its coffers in the face of relentless FWBC prosecution which has cost the union $7 million in penalties, as revealed by The Australian last week, and millions more in legal fees since the first Building Industry Taskforce in 2002.

A possible merger of the TWU and other smaller transport unions has also been rumoured.

But under the ABCC wharfies — alongside truck drivers and their unions — would also be subject to civil prosecution for unlawful conduct when “transporting or supplying goods ... to building sites”.

The bill may yet be subject to amendment after discussion with crossbenchers.

The ACTU yesterday reacted angrily to the Coalition’s plans, which could force an early election if the Senate rejects the laws.

ACTU secretary Dave Oliver declared the return of the ABCC was one of the Coalition’s “bad policies which the Australian people do not support”.

Labour relations expert and former senior unionist Tim Lyons told The Australian the ABCC was “designed to make building unionism impossible, by tilting up large fines to hopefully bankrupt the union and which are also used in the political debate”.

The bill confers strong powers on the ABCC to compel witnesses to give evidence in person under oath or produce documents, activates a tighter building code and imposes stringent requirements on right of entry permits for union officials to enter construction sites.

FWBC’s existing compulsory powers are subject to strict safeguards.

Mr Turnbull said in December that the government would draft a new Registered Organisations Bill based on the recommendations of the Heydon royal commission on trade union governance and corruption.

The first version of the Registered Organisations Bill, which has been twice rejected in the Senate, subjects union officials to the same accountability for corruption as company directors. The ABCC Bill, first introduced in November 2013, was rejected by the Senate last August.