Topics: Building Cooperative Workplaces Bill, CFMEU
E&OE
Melissa Clarke, Host: Frustrated by the Federal Government’s efforts to push a union-friendly bill through Parliament with limited scrutiny, much of the legislation deals with the backlog of unfair dismissal cases before the Fair Work Commission and has widespread support, but the Government has been accused of tacking on an unrelated provision that would allow it to preference businesses with union-backed enterprise bargaining agreements, when awarding contracts and grants. Bran Black is the Chief Executive of the Business Council of Australia. He joined me a short time ago. Bran Black, thanks for speaking to AM this morning.
Bran Black, Chief Executive: Thanks so much for having me.
Melissa: Take me through your objection to this provision in the Government’s legislation.
Bran: Well, what this Bill does is give the Federal Government the power to discriminate against employers based on whether or not they have a union-endorsed enterprise bargaining agreement for the purposes of awarding procurement opportunities or grants, and what this type of arrangement reflects is precisely the type of legislative arrangement that applied in Victoria that led to direct corruption outcomes, and this was, of course, the subject of reporting by Geoffrey Watson, SC, with respect to the Victorian Big Build, where he found that these types of arrangements helped facilitate $15 billion worth of corruption, but our concern is that this bill applies precisely these types of arrangements right across Australia’s economy. We can’t understand.
Melissa: The Government says the construction sector will be excluded. Is that not sufficient to assuage your concerns?
Bran: It’s absolutely not sufficient for a couple of reasons. The first is that the mere fact that construction has to be excluded accepts the enormous risk that this Bill, in and of itself, carries.
But secondly, if you exclude construction, you’ve still got the rest of the economy covered, so this could be the medical sector, or mining, or manufacturing, or it could be the charitable sector, or defence, any sector that has a procurement relationship with Government, any sector that is engaging with Government for the purposes of grants, any sector at all is subject to these arrangements, and what Geoffrey Watson said in his commentary just this morning was that when you put the power to give an EBA into the hands of a very few people, it means that it is very, very easily corrupted, and that’s our concern here.
Melissa: It looks like this legislation is set to move through both Houses of Parliament in this fortnight. What discussions have you had with the Minister about this? Has there been any reception for your concerns?
Bran: Well, we’ve been absolutely clear with the Minister from day one, once this particular provision was raised, that we would be strongly objecting to it, and we are. We’re calling on the Parliament to comprehensively reject this particular component, and I really do stress it’s not just us raising these concerns. They’ve been raised by Helen Haines, by Kate Chaney, by Allegra Spender, by Zali Steggall.
They’ve been raised by the Opposition with Jane Hume, and of course, they’ve been emphasised by Geoffrey Watson SC, who, of course, did so much good work in New South Wales to tackle corruption.
He’s made comments today that this particular Bill is an enormous corruption risk for the Commonwealth, for every taxpayer, and ultimately, we should all be concerned, because it adds enormously to the risk of cost blowouts across our economy.
Melissa: Bran Black, thanks very much for speaking to AM this morning.
It’s my pleasure anytime.