The Senate has condemned the building industry to at least another six months of unfettered powers for the ABCC.

Independent South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon and Family First’s Senator Steve Fielding have sided with the Coalition in refusing to curtail the ABCC’s draconian powers.

This means that the ABCC does not have to get written permission from the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal before it can undertake compulsory interviews.

Workers summonsed by the ABCC will still not be able to be represented by their own lawyer. Not happy, Kev

The union movement will continue the fight against these discriminatory laws. The ACTU Congress spoke with one voice when it stated: there is no justification for coercive powers in industrial relations. There is no justification for treating building workers differently from all other workers.

Julia Gillard’s pronouncement at the ACTU Congress against ‘balaclava-wearing’ workers at the Westgate Bridge dispute as part of her argument for retaining these laws.

The people wearing balaclavas were actually the security guards, and I’m sure she knew that. The fact is that she has been unable to squarely address the issue and give us a reason why we need these coercive powers.

Front bench ducks for cover

Other people in the Labor front bench, some of whom were former union officials, either don’t understand or don’t want to deal with the argument.
This is not simply an abstract issue. There is a worker who is currently being subjected to those coercive powers – Ark Tribe – who did nothing but stand up over a safety issue on the job.

Get rid of bad laws

Labor’s insistence that there were safeguards to prevent abuses of the coercive powers is a redundant argument.
If you don’t have bad laws, you don’t need safeguards. After the 2007 election, the new Minister for Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard set up a review of the ABCC headed by former judge, Murray Wilcox. Wilcox’s review recommended that the Rudd Government keep the ABCC as a unit within the office of Fair Work Australia.

MBA and Business win

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence said it was unacceptable to retain discriminatory laws including the use of over-the-top coercive powers against one group of workers.

The only people that will win from the retention of unfair laws in this industry will be the big building developers and construction companies.
We fear that these laws will stop workers on building sites from speaking out when a situation is unsafe or unfair. Official figures from the Australian Safety and Compensation Council reveal that in the year prior to the introduction of the Howard Government’s discriminatory laws for the construction industry in 2004, there were 19 deaths on Australian building sites, but in 2007 this had risen to 33 deaths.

ABCC gets twice the money

The Rudd Government funds the ABCC to the tune of $33 million a year – almost twice as much as Safe Work Australia which gets only $17 million.
Federal Labor MP Julia Irwin told Parliament: ‘On average one construction or mining worker dies from a workplace injury every week, but this government spends six times as much on union witch-hunts as it does on workplace safety.

‘The ABCC receives more than twice the $13 million allocation to the Australian Human Rights Commission, more than the $28 million going to the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia, and more than twice the $16 million appropriated to the High Court of Australia.’ Ms Irwin’s comments echo what the CFMEU has been saying for some time: This is a huge waste of taxpayers’ money.

We have to continue this campaign to get rid of these laws. We’re in this for the long haul, and we have the unanimous support of all the unions.