Page 137 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2016
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(a) the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption found evidence of bullying, intimidation and exclusion on worksites across Australia;
(b) in relation to the activities of the ACT Branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption recommended that the Secretary of the ACT Branch of the CFMEU should be referred to the Director-General of the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate in order that consideration may be given to whether he should be charged with and prosecuted for intimidating an inspector contrary to section 190 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011;
(c) that the CFMEU provides substantial financial assistance and has significant influence on ACT Labor and the ACT Greens; and
(d) the ongoing police investigations into alleged leaks, relating to a ministerial meeting with the Chief Police Officer, from the former Police Minister’s office to the ACT Branch of the CFMEU; and
(2) calls on the ACT Government’s Labor and Green members to suspend all financial and political links with the CFMEU.
My intention with this motion today is to remind us all of the tentacles of the union movement that reach well and truly into this Assembly and into the corridors of power that this government occupy. This is not the first time that I have brought a motion of this nature to this place. I first raised the issue whilst the royal commission was underway, but now that it has concluded, it is time for some action.
It is also time again to highlight the evidence of bullying, intimidation and exclusion that has been uncovered during the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. The evidence uncovered alarming practices taking place on Canberra building sites, practices that have sadly been evident to too many businesses well before the royal commission began.
On 31 December 2015, the royal commission handed down its report and we as a nation saw the extent of the misconduct, the unlawfulness, the alleged corrupt behaviour that now extends throughout the union movement across this country. The commission received evidence from 525 witnesses in public and private hearings on 189 individual hearing days that were held in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and, of course, here in Canberra.
In conducting its investigations, the commission issued more than 2,000 notices to produce documents and generated a database of over 852,000 individual documents comprising millions of pages of evidence. The evidence that resulted was damning and in the light of day shows the true impact on the construction industry, its businesses and its workers.
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