Senator BACK (Western Australia) (13:00): I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the fact that yesterday was one of the most historic and memorable days in the Senate of the Parliament of Australia for both positive and negative reasons. Positively, we have seen the start of a process now in which the people of Australia can have their voice on issues about which I will discuss. Secondly, from a positive point of view, we restored the capacity and the centrality of the families of Australia, particularly the small business families of Australia, to get about doing the work that they do so well. On the negative side, we regrettably saw by one of our colleagues—the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Stephen Conroy—a most unprecedented, unfair and cowardly attack on the person and the position of the Governor-General of Australia. In his response to the presence and the statements made by the Governor-General on behalf of the government and indeed on behalf of the Prime Minister, Senator Conroy made comments along the lines that the Governor-General had demeaned his office. He drew attention to a past, now deceased, Governor-General and activities. He made the observation that 'a strong Governor-General would never have agreed' to undertake what the Prime Minister of the day had requested and what the Governor-General is required to do, and that the Prime Minister had 'used his position in advising the Governor-General in a way' which Senator Conroy thought 'would never happen again.' The irony of all this is that constitutional experts have drawn attention to the error of Senator Conroy's comments. Constitutional law expert from the University of New South Wales, George Williams, said: If anything, the spectre of 1975 would have been raised if the Governor-General had acted contrary to the view of the Prime Minister, so I think he (Senator Conroy) has got it the wrong way around. Professor Anne Twomey, of Sydney University, made this comment: The reverse of what Senator Conroy is saying is the case. What was controversial in 1975 was that the governor-general refused to act on government advice and acted without it. I call on Senator Conroy, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and the Labor Party's shadow spokesman on defence, to come into this place and reflect on the comments that he made, agree with the statements of his own leader, Mr Shorten, and indeed the Prime Minister and others, and apologise unreservedly to the Governor-General. If nothing else, we know the person of General Sir Peter Cosgrove—probably one of the most highly decorated and certainly one of the most successful military generals in this country's history. It was in September 1999 that the United Nations mission to East Timor charged Australia with the responsibility of bringing peace and good order to that country following its long years of conflict with Indonesia. And who was it that the Australian government appointed? The government appointed none other than General Sir Peter Cosgrove to lead what became known as INTERFET—one of the most successful military and peacekeeping operations in this country's history. No injuries and no wounds were encountered. He led a contingent of people from 23 countries, involving in all some 11,000 people and he did so with a high degree of military precision and he brought enormous honour to this country. At that time I was undertaking business activities in Asia, including with an Asian military organisation. When Cosgrove was appointed to lead INTERFET, I recall being told by senior generals of that military organisation that we were not good enough and that Australia was going to end up with blood on its nose because its contingent and its leader simply were not capable of undertaking that work. So yesterday, when the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and shadow spokesman for defence was decrying the Governor-General of Australia, he was also placing abuse at the person of a military hero of this country. I know Senator Conroy. I believe him to be a man of honour and I believe the right thing he should do is come into this chamber today before we rise this evening and give an explanation to the Senate and to the people of Australia and, in particular, give an apology to His Excellency General Sir Peter Cosgrove. What the Governor-General's speech yesterday morning, and the results of votes in this place yesterday afternoon, indicated is that we now have a true opportunity for the democratic process to play its part. Registered organisations legislation was introduced into the lower house. It came here to the Senate and was rejected. It then went back to the lower house and came to this place and was rejected again, and it has now become what is known as trigger for a double-dissolution election. In other words, the government of the day, elected to run this country, is unable to bring forward its legislation. Secondly, as we saw played out yesterday, the Building and Construction Commission legislation was again rejected. It is important for people in this gallery and others around Australia to know that in 2013 the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, on behalf of the coalition, took to the 2013 election the fact that we wanted to reinstitute the ABCC. The people of Australia overwhelmingly returned the coalition to government and, in so doing, made it their position that they were happy with the introduction of that legislation. But yesterday we saw for the second time the rejection of legislation put by the government of the day, and that of course has also triggered a double-dissolution election. It is now time for the people of Australia to confirm their decision from 2013. There could not be a more direct contrast. Drawing upon my own horseracing background, I can say to you that the Labor Party is owned, trained, ridden and strapped by the union movement in this country. What we are going to see over the next few weeks is a very, very clear description of who runs the Labor Party in this country. We saw evidence of it on two occasions yesterday to which I will refer: the ABCC and the construction sector—the CFMEU, which is a huge donor of more than $7 million to the Labor Party for campaign purposes. Through you, Acting Deputy President Reynolds, I am delighted that Senator McAllister is with us in the chamber. It was not all that long ago that I watched an interview on television with Senator McAllister with the Hon. Paul Ferguson. I recall Senator McAllister saying at the time that it is important to let the courts of Australia make the decisions when it comes to alleged unruly behaviour, dominance, bullying and standover tactics. I would like to draw attention to what the courts said and why it is so necessary for us to return to an ABCC. The Federal Court of Australia, in a recent decision, noted: Comments such as “[t]he last time it cost us a shit load of money” and “it is going to be expensive but our fighting fund will have to fix it” evidence an attitude on the part of— The CFMEU— branch officials that the risk of the imposition of significant pecuniary penalties will not be allowed to act as a constraint on unlawful activity which they consider to be warranted. That is the response of the Federal Court of Australia, Senator McAllister, to the activities of the CFMEU. More recently, the Supreme Court of Victoria—and New South Wales and other supreme courts have had similar experiences—stated: … the imposition of a penalty for contempt of court should not be viewed as simply an anticipated cost of industrial action … few things could be more destructive to the authority of the Court and to the rule of law than the idea that fines or similar punishment are akin to a tax that, once budgeted for, enable the use of unlawful conduct to achieve industrial outcomes. That has been the response of the federal and supreme courts. If we have a look at the industry regulator itself, the FWBC, it has advised that the spread of unlawfulness in the industry, which was a feature of Victoria and our home state of Western Australia, has now spread to Queensland and South Australia. This is the Fair Work Building & Construction's statement, the regulator, not mine. As we know, after 2007 when Labor came into government—and I am reminded of the fact that it took them some time, despite the pressure from the unions, to abolish the ABCC—they appointed Justice Murray Wilcox QC. We know him not to be a person of our political persuasion. They asked him to review the industry in such a way that they could buy time before they abolished the ABCC. Justice Wilcox, recognised the need for, and the benefit provided by, the Australian Building and Construction Commission and stated in his report—it was not welcomed by Ms Gillard at that time: 'The ABCC's work is not done. It would be unfortunate if the ABCC's replacement body led to a reversal of the progress that has been made.' That is exactly what we have seen. Those are points that I am delighted I can refer Senator McAllister to as she in this place. The CFMEU has undue and unruled power over the Labor Party. Through you, Acting Deputy President, to those in the public gallery understand this: the construction industry in this country employs more than a million people. In small businesses and family businesses, the vast majority are not members of unions or the CFMEU, in particular. We know that this government has placed enormous emphasis on construction. There has been $55 billion for infrastructure projects. The evidence before us is that more than one-third of the cost of construction projects in this country is wasted as a result of industrial lawlessness. It is important for the taxpayers of Australia and the Australian community that we reduce and eliminate that 30 per cent wastage so that it can go into the very construction projects about which I speak. We know that at this time the CFMEU has more than 100 of its officials before the courts around Australia. This is unconscionable. What we saw yesterday was, again, the involvement of the Labor Party and the Greens political party, along with four of the Independents, voting down the reinstitution of the ABCC. We are looking at the largest infrastructure spend in Australia's history. We know very well that should Labor get into government, we would see a continuation of industrial lawlessness simply because those who pay the piper, as we know, call the tune. The other point of interest yesterday was that we voted to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. I listened to the contribution a few minutes ago from Senator Sue Lines about the problems associated with safety on roads in Australia and how bad this decision is. The interesting thing is that it was 2011 when then Prime Minister Gillard, kowtowing to the Transport Workers Union—another owner, trainer and rider of the Labor Party—instituted this particular tribunal. If what Senator Lines said is true about the tribunal being involved in heavy vehicle road safety, then why have we not seen a significant reduction in the instances of accidents involving heavy vehicles from 2011 to 2016? We know very well that this particular tribunal was never introduced for the purpose of heavy vehicle road safety. There is already a national heavy vehicle regulator. If Ms Gillard and the TWU—at that time—were truly interested, this is where they would have placed their resources. It is a fact that 85 per cent of all major accidents involving trucks are not the fault or the responsibility of the driver. But we do know that had we not gotten rid of the tribunal yesterday some 35,000 to 40,000 small businesses—owner operated trucking businesses—around this country were already on their way to going to the wall as a result of the decisions of that tribunal, and it is interesting to reflect that back in 2011 even the Transport Workers Union said to Ms Gillard, 'You should put some industry people on the tribunal.' But there was no way in the world. Only recently did the TWU join the government and industry asking the tribunal to delay its decision to axe and destroy the businesses of 35,000 people. Even the TWU joined that, but the tribunal in its arrogance ignored that advice, and now so richly have they been condemned to history with the abolition of that particular tribunal. In contrast to what Senator Lines said when she made the claim the government has laid nothing out in terms of improving road safety, I invite her to go back and read the speech that I gave last night and also the speech of my colleague Senator John Williams, who has long been a champion of the abolition of that organisation. What does the future hold? What is the choice that the people of Australia have? I will give you two quickly examples: firstly, the economy and, secondly, border protection and security. In 2007 this country was in surplus. We had no debt. We had no deficit. When Labor came into government we were in surplus, the only Western country to be so. By 2013 there was $100 billion of your money in accumulated deficits and some $350 billion of debt. You are borrowing $1 billion a month offshore to pay the interest on that debt. You are not repaying the debt. You are now borrowing more than $1 billion a month offshore out of your money to repay that interest on that debt. So if you want to have a look at a contrast between the economic capacity of governments, you need go no further than the last Labor government and the coalition government— Senator Dastyari: It has gone up. Senator BACK: because, as Senator Dastyari knows from his own background, the best predictor of future performance and behaviour is past behaviour. So it will be a very, very clear decision for the people of Australia in assessing that circumstance. Look at the Labor Party's policies as they have already been stated: no attempt to reduce taxes in this country and an attempt to destroy investment incentive by their negative gearing opportunities. Has Mr Shorten or the shadow Treasurer, Mr Bowen, come out and explained the rationale? No, they have not. In fact, as somebody said recently, the impact of this on people will be the equivalent of death duties. We know what the impact of the carbon tax has been around Australia. Would Labor reintroduce the carbon tax, to the destruction of Australian families and business? Would Labor reintroduce the mining tax that had such a devastating impact in my home state of Western Australia? In the time left available to me, I now turn to this country's border protection and security. An honourable senator: Shame! Senator BACK: Yes, it is a shame. You are right. I will take that interjection. It is a shame, Madam Acting Deputy President, and I will tell you why. The Greens political party were part of the Labor Party government between 2007 and 2013 which produced these statistics that I speak of. In 2007 we did not have any illegal maritime arrivals and we had no children in detention. Between 2008 and 2013, during the time of the Labor-Greens government, there were more than 50,000 illegal maritime arrivals. We know that more than 1,200 people died at sea. We know there were more. We know the 1,200 because they, regrettably, were pulled out of the water. We do not know how many more people died. Of these maritime arrivals, a total of 8,000 children were in detention during the time the Labor and Greens were in government. It peaked in July 2013, just before the last election, at 1,992. On behalf of the government, I am proud to announce today that this year, from the figures given to me, as of 3 April there are no children of illegal maritime arrivals in detention in Australia. What would be the situation should Labor get back into government? Finally, I just simply want to contrast the two leaders. I want to contrast to the people of Australia who they will be voting for and who should be privileged to be the Prime Minister of the country after July 2016 and lead this country. In Malcolm Turnbull we have a person with an exemplary business background, a person who, at all phases of his professional life, has been an employer, stimulated employment and activity, been in the law, and operated internationally and nationally. In his opponent, Mr Shorten, we have a union hack, a person who has done nothing other than be in the union movement. He has never run a business. He has never employed staff. This is the choice before the people of Australia on 2 July 2016. Senator McALLISTER: I rise to express my disagreement with the perspectives expressed during this address-in-reply debate around the purpose of the recall of this parliament. The couple of days of sitting so far have been a farce, with today seeing absolutely no legislation placed on the Notice Paper from the government for debate in this chamber. What was the rationale for recalling people? The logic provided to the Governor-General was that industrial relations on construction sites is an issue of national importance because, amongst other things, construction is a large part of the Australian economy, so productivity on construction sites is important. I think that is the essence of their argument. Let's take a look at that piece by piece. It is true that construction is significant, but it is by no means the largest industry in our economy. If the government were truly concerned about significant areas of the Australian economy, it would do well to look a little more closely at the finance sector. It is certainly much bigger than the construction sector and it is certainly more systemically important than the construction sector. It was not industrial relations in the construction sector that jeopardised the entire global economy just eight years ago. Hundreds of thousands of Australians did not lose on their retirement savings because of misconduct on building sites. And, despite the very best efforts of the Minister for Employment at every question time for the last 12 months, it has not been scandals in construction firms that have decorated the front page of our newspapers. The scandals that have been on the front page, the scandals we do hear about, go to the culture inside our major retail banks and our investment banks. Those scandals speak to a culture of risk-taking that, in the very recent past, has led banks to make investment decisions that pose systemic risks to the whole Australian economy. It is for that reason that the Australian Labor Party has proposed that a royal commission be undertaken into the practices of our banks, to make sure that it is in the best possible shape to serve the Australian economy in the way that we understand is so important. What is the second limb of the government's argument? It is that a lack of workplace productivity in the construction sector is holding us back. The statistics tell another story, because in fact labour productivity across the economy has grown, not fallen, over the past decade. In fact, the Productivity Commission reported a few years ago that slow or negative multifactor productivity growth in manufacturing and finance and the insurance services in recent years has been a major drag on the economy-wide result. It is not actually making comment about the construction sector and it is not the case that labour productivity is really the problem that we are facing. Even if it were, the next part of the government's argument, I think, is that the reintroduction of the ABCC might do something to lift productivity. It did not last time. What did the Productivity Commission say in May 2014? It said: The evidence that the ABCC stimulated material improvements in aggregate productivity or achieved cost reductions is weak. The Productivity Commission, not a particularly left-wing body, said that the evidence for improvement in productivity as a consequence of the ABCC is weak. The evidence is not there, and yet this is the argument relied upon by the government to establish the basis for the economy-wide effect of introducing one new regulator. It is ridiculous. It is a fabrication and it just does not stand up when you look at it closely. Let's take it to the next part of their argument. Even if the government were right about the impact of productivity on construction sites, we do not need the ABCC to improve that. We have existing bodies that can and do investigate corruption and misconduct by union officials. The Minister for Employment as good as admitted that yesterday. Yesterday during question time—and I will observe that it is not for the first time; this has become a rather predictable aspect of question time, in fact—once again the Minister for Employment was reading examples of what she claimed was union misconduct into the Hansard. Where did those examples come from? She was quoting from court judgements. Senator Back, in his contribution—Mr Acting Deputy President Back, there you are now in the chair—did exactly the same thing: he read from court judgements. These are court judgements that have only come about as a result of police or Fair Work taking action, doing the job that they were set up to do: investigating misconduct in not just in this industry but in industry. The system works. We do not need a new body that has coercive powers that fly in the face of 600 years of English legal tradition. I can confirm my views. I do think that the police and the courts ought to be allowed to get on with the job that they have been tasked with. We do not need a special body with extraordinary powers to deal with what are quite straightforward issues in workplaces. The fact that the government believe that industrial relations on construction sites is the biggest challenge facing the Australian economy should tell us something about their vision. It is a vision that lacks imagination and it is a vision that is extremely limited. The coalition, unhappily, has a simplistic view of the Australian economy. Out of one eye they see their corporate donors, whose interests they will support no matter what. Out of the other eye they see unions, which they will attack no matter what. That is not really the way we ought to treat economic management. The coalition's blindness to the economy as a whole is irresponsible. It endangers the nation's economic future and it should disqualify them from government. There is nothing on the Notice Paper today in this House. We hear that the Senate may not be sitting after today, despite a promise of three weeks of extra sitting. It is a sign of a government with no ideas and no plans and offering no hope to Australia's people. With an extra three weeks here in the Senate and perhaps in the House of Representatives we could have debated same-sex marriage—something we know most Australians would like us to act on. We could have talked about a proper solution to climate change—something to address a very real and scientifically validated challenge that poses real threats to the nation's economy. But, of course, we do not see any legislation or any plans brought forward into the chamber today. Maybe, closer to the static concerns of the coalition, we could have discussed a comprehensive plan to lift the nation's productivity. What would that look like? Let's start with No. 1. It might be that we would seek to remove distortions from the nation's tax system. It might be that, as Labor has proposed, we start to look at the overly generous superannuation tax breaks that are provided for very high-income earners—people who earn more than $300,000 a year who are, nonetheless, subject to very generous tax breaks on contributions that they make to their superannuation, allowing them to accrue balances in those super accounts that go well beyond what could reasonably be imagined as a comfortable standard necessary for retirement. Perhaps in the time available we could have gone after multinational tax cheats and had a look at who pays their taxes and what we might do to make sure that everyone in this economy pulls their weight, not just the pay-as-you-go earners—the ordinary mums and dads—but the multinationals who benefit from our educated workforce and infrastructure. We could make sure that they paid their tax and made their contribution to the Australian economy. Maybe we could have had a talk about negative gearing and capital gains tax, because the current tax breaks, which previous speakers to the debate have referred to, support investors to buy their sixth home. They do not support couples who are buying their first home; in fact, they place those young couples who go to an auction at a positive disadvantage to the person who is standing there, buying their sixth home and seeking to enhance their investment portfolio. The consequence of this distorting tax framework for housing is that it pushes people into the outer suburbs of our cities, where there is not proper infrastructure—and that does create a drag on productivity. It creates a drag on the economy as a whole. We have really good analysis about Sydney, in my home state, from the Grattan Institute. In some suburbs in Sydney, only 14 per cent of the total jobs available can be accessed by a 45-minute car trip. Think about that. You set out and you might drive in any direction for 45 minutes. What percentage of the available jobs do you think you can access? The answer for many people in Sydney's suburbs is just 14 per cent of all of the jobs. It does not help people find work and it does not help them find work that will advance their careers and allow them to contribute to the nation's economy. The situation is even worse if you are on public transport. In many outer suburbs of Sydney, you can access fewer than one in 10 of the city's jobs within an hour on public transport. Just 10 per cent of the city's jobs are available to you, even if you are willing to travel for an hour on public transport. It is a national disgrace that people are living in this way, and it has important impacts, interestingly, on women. Women's workforce participation falls massively in Sydney's outer suburbs. Men and women in the eastern suburbs and the inner west participate in the workforce at relatively similar levels, but, in parts of Sydney's outer west and the south-west, women's workforce participation falls to more than 20 per cent below that of men. One of the reasons is that those women understand that, if they have to travel for an hour on public transport or 45 minutes in their vehicle to access a very small number of low-paid jobs, that is not a realistic way of combining work and family. So we have real productivity challenges that this parliament should be addressing but is not. It brings me to my second point, which is the significance of our nation's infrastructure. The Prime Minister has promised to focus on cities, but his Minister for Cities and the Built Environment lost his way sometime—he lost his focus in a bar. By 2025 we will have an extra 4.5 million people living in our cities, and we need to provide infrastructure for those people in a non-partisan way. The approach we would take in government is to put Infrastructure Australia at the centre of capital investment, to bring some rigour, some transparency and some authority to the process of infrastructure planning, to make sure that this process is not politicised and to make sure that there is always a business case when Commonwealth money is spent on public infrastructure in any of our cities. What else might we do? A Labor approach to the economy might see us actually focus in a serious way on improving women's workforce participation. Australia as a whole is, supposedly, committed to lifting female workforce participation. We signed on to a G20 process to lift it, in fact, by 25 per cent by 2025. The Grattan Institute has calculated that, if Australia lifted its workforce participation just to match Canada's, we could add $25 billion annually to GDP. But the only way that we can realistically do this is by having mothers come back to work earlier. We need to think carefully about what it is that is preventing women from returning to work—and the answer is very clear. It is childcare costs, it is the failure to provide for career paths to develop the skills of these women and it is how our tax and transfer systems interact to create serious disincentives for women returning to work. That is something I might have put on the agenda if I wanted to have a serious debate about Australia's economic prosperity, instead of the narrowness that we have witnessed in recent days in this chamber. Item 4—I have a long list—is that maybe we ought to think about education. Maybe we can think about properly funding higher education. This government has had an ideas boom in how we might strip funding out of universities. It has had an ideas boom in innovative ways to undermine one of our most profitable export sectors. But it certainly has not demonstrated any interest whatsoever in genuinely improving the educational capital that is held by the vast bulk of the Australian workforce, and it is a very great shame that that was not listed for debate in the Senate sittings that were proposed for this week. Item 5 is a high-tech workforce. Maybe that would be part of a productivity agenda for Australia. Two out of five science and maths teachers for years 7 to 10 do not have degrees in that subject. Twenty thousand teachers in science, maths and IT did not actually study those subjects at universities. We have put forward, in recent months, a very clear plan to start addressing this problem, because it is critical that we start to train our young people in science and technology. We need to encourage more women to enter the field and we need to boost the skills of existing teachers. The truth is, unless we can build a workforce full of young men and young women who are capable of participating in the technology jobs of the future, we will struggle to maintain the lifestyle and the standard of living that have made Australia such a wonderful place to live in recent decades. I put all those things on the table because I think that they do draw a stark contrast with the narrowness of the vision expressed by coalition senators in recent days and the narrowness of the vision expressed by Prime Minister Turnbull. It defies belief that we would reduce the performance of the entire Australian economy to a handful of issues in one sector of the economy. It defies belief that we would recall a parliament to debate only that issue for three weeks, at enormous expense to the Australian taxpayer. I would say to anyone listening: Australia really deserves to have a government that actually has a plan. The coalition seems absolutely determined to squander the chance it has been given—a golden chance—to improve the lives of ordinary Australians. Instead, its priority is satisfying its myopic obsession with trade unions. Given the infighting we have witnessed since Christmas, it may be that this focus on unions is because it is the only thing that members in the coalition party room can actually agree on. They certainly cannot agree on the approach to tax reform. They certainly cannot agree on how they should approach anti-bullying programs in schools. They certainly cannot agree on how they might approach same-sex marriage. They do not seem to be able to agree on whether or not they agree with the National Water Initiative and the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Senator Cameron: They're just so disagreeable! Senator McALLISTER: They are a disagreeable bunch, Senator Cameron! The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Back ): Order! Please don't disturb the speaker! Senator McALLISTER: It may be that the only thing that the coalition party room have in common with one another in these times is a dislike of trade unions—a dislike of the organisations which represent ordinary people and protect their interests and their standards in the workplace. I do not believe that that is a winning proposition with the Australian people at an election. The Australian people have rejected exactly that proposition, put in exactly those terms, by this same group of people at a previous election, when people very rightly rejected the Work Choices legislation of the Howard government and booted the coalition out of office. These guys might want to structure an election entirely around an industrial relations proposition, but I say to coalition senators that this is a bad idea. I think it is a bad idea tactically, but I guess that is their business. More importantly, it is a bad idea because it fails to address the very real challenges facing Australia, and it fails to capitalise on the very real opportunities that we have. Only a Labor government will have a real plan for Australia. Those things have been laid out clearly, well in advance of an election, by our leader, Bill Shorten. I am very proud of the work that Bill, his shadow cabinet and all of my colleagues in caucus have done in the period we have had in opposition. I look forward to fighting an election—to taking that conversation to the Australian people in the coming months.