Page 3102 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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months. Two hundred rights of entry visits in 90 days—two visits a day. If you think that that is fair and reasonable, go out and spend some time in the real world, because all that is is an abuse of power.
Then you go to BHP Billiton’s Worsley alumina plant. It had 676 rights of entry visits. In how long? In four years? Three years? Two years? One year? In a year—676 rights of entry visits in a single year.
As to unions carrying out their job in a fair and reasonable way, I do not think anybody objects to that. But abuse of privilege and abuse of law in that way is not acceptable because what it then says to people is, “Australia is already high cost, you have got lots of legislation and you have got huge thresholds, which makes us uncompetitive.” If you want to protect the jobs that you talk about, if you want to create more jobs, then you need to have an environment where people look at Australia and say, “That is a great place to invest.”
I am looking at the Pluto LNG project and Worsley alumina and going, “Man, all those union right of entry visits do not fill people looking for certainty with any confidence at all.” That is what this should be about. This motion should be about certainty for business, and that is why I have moved my amendment. It is one of those “delete all and replace” amendments.
Paragraph (a) states:
… the present Federal Government inherited a legacy of high-cost and low productivity as a result of Labor’s industrial relations policies …
Once Labor introduced their policy, productivity went through the floor. It declined significantly, and if you think that is a good thing for this economy and the future of workers in this economy, you are fooling yourself. Let us call a spade a spade.
Paragraph (b) states:
… the Fair Work Act Amendment Bill 2014 is a Commonwealth matter …
If you brought a bill forward today, or a motion today, that said let us legislate for random drug and alcohol testing on building sites, something that we have control over, fantastic. Let us have debates about things that we can actually do here rather than randomly looking around for any opportunity to attack the federal government.
Paragraph (c) states:
… the Coalition’s proposed changes were announced approximately four months prior to the Federal election …
It was there on the table.
Paragraph (d) states:
… the amendment bill enacts a number of recommendations from the Fair Work Review Panel in its 2012 review …
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