… foreign to the workplace relations of civilised societies, as distinct from undemocratic and authoritarian regimes.
But sadly they are powers that exist in Australia courtesy of the extreme industrial relations agenda of the Howard government.
The Building and Construction Industry Improvement Bill, for the first time in Australia’s history, creates a government agency to police workers and encroach on Australians’ basic civil rights. This agency, the Australian Building and Construction Commission—or the ABCC—has the role of policing construction workers and their unions. The commission possesses coercive, police-like powers, with more than 150 investigators and a $20 million budget. If we were ever on the brink of becoming a police state, this is a sure sign of things to come. On building sites across Australia, the commission’s investigators will be found spying on workers as they attempt to micromanage on-site relationships between workers and their employers. This conflict driven, litigious approach is indicative of the Howard government’s arrogant approach to workplace relations.
Today the government is trying to introduce its long-awaited WorkChoices industrial relations reforms in the House. The legislation is being introduced, as we are seeing, by the subversion of House standing orders. If workers of Australia need any example of the government’s agenda in action, they need look no further than the ABCC and the government’s own disregard and contempt for due process. The Howard government has given the commission coercive powers to force construction workers to answer questions or hand over documents—and the powers do not stop there. A worker who engages in now unlawful industrial action faces fines of up to $22,000, and unions who encourage industrial action can be fined up to $110,000. Even a stop-work meeting can be deemed unlawful by the commission, as could the simple act of workers getting together to discuss pay and conditions.
This is an extreme government with an extreme industrial relations agenda, an agenda that seeks to erode the basic democratic rights of working Australians. But the CFMEU and other unions will not be legislated out of existence. As workers begin to feel the pain of the government’s IR agenda as it impacts on their weekly pay packets and working conditions, so too will this government feel the wrath of the workers at the next election. Today I want to convey to this House the anger of many of my constituents who are members of the CFMEU, and their determination, alongside that of the union movement, to fight against this government’s attack on their workplace and their working conditions.
