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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
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Bills

Construction Industry Training Fund (Board) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Adjourned debate on third reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (15:48): I rise to conclude the remarks I commenced just before we moved on to other business. I was speaking about the government's approach to this bill and what motivates it, and that is in this bill, removing the requirement that employee representatives form part of the Construction Industry Training Board and instead converting it to a regime where the minister has discretion on who comprises the board.

The minister, present with us now, is a minister, as I was saying earlier, who has made no secret about how he feels about employee representatives and about the union movement more generally. He has been vociferous, strident and consistent in his criticism of those people who give up their careers or change jobs all in order, really, to represent the interests of working people and working South Australians in particular.

He is, for some reason that is unclear to us, the self-styled union buster of those opposite—the parliament's Patrick Corrigan, if you will. But to rebuff the sorts of claims and concerns that are echoing throughout the community, particularly amongst workers and their representatives, that they will no longer have access to the Construction Industry Training Board, the minister says, 'No, trust me. I can make the appointments, and there is nothing to say that as minister I will not make appointments of union representatives or other employee representatives.' Really?

If we look at those who have been appointed recently to the Training and Skills Commission, we can see very clearly that the minister does not believe that there is room for employee representatives. I cannot understand why. I am a member of a union and proudly so. Unfortunately, it is a dwindling union for a number of reasons, some of which are related to the Liberal Party of Australia—it is the Finance Sector Union, the union that represents those people working in the financial services industries or the banks.

Of course, we could spend a lot of time discussing the Liberal Party of Australia's approach to that particular industry. I am not sure what it is that sets off the minister and his bile-infected hatred of unions, whether it is the abolition of the six days a week, 12 hours a day working week, which Australians were subject to—

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Point of order: I ask that you bring the speaker back to the bill. We are—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Do you have a point of order to make?

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Yes, the fact that—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: No, I was not speaking to you: I was calling across the chamber.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —you are speaking outside the reference of the third reading speech and I ask, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you direct the member for Lee back in.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, minister. I will listen carefully to the member's comments.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: With regard to the Construction Industry Training Board, I am not sure why the minister believes unions or employee representatives do not have a welcome contribution to make, whether it is the longstanding history of achievement, the introduction of a reasonable working week—not six days a week, 12 hours a day—or the introduction of annual leave, sick leave, long service leave, awards, penalty rates, maternity leave, superannuation, equal pay for women, occupational health and safety legislation, or, of course, WorkCover.

With that history of achievement by employee representatives, you have to wonder why this bill and this minister choose to go after those people who strive to continue improving the lot of workers in the construction industries. Do we honestly believe that it would have been on the initiative of employers to come up with a rigorous, legally mandated and expensive training regime to make sure that workers in the construction industry were adequately trained? Do we honestly believe that it was employers who put their hand up to say that what we should do is introduce the white card regime, or the yellow card regime to make sure that workers can be safer, either on site generally or perhaps working safely at heights, for example? Of course not.

These are the things in the construction industry that workers and their representatives have been responsible for pushing. It is workers who know what it is like to conduct the work in the industry. They know the risks involved. They know the toll that it can take on them physically and mentally, and that is why their interests need to be represented, particularly with regard to training.

As time has gone on, as the labour movement more generally—and I am talking about beyond just the establishment of the Australian Labor Party—has formed in this country and developed over the last more than 120 years, community standards have drastically increased when it comes to not only how workers are remunerated, and how they are legally protected from those who employ them, but also how they are looked after in the workplace, that they are kept safe and adequately trained and that they not only know how to do the work safely.

I would have thought that the minister, himself a former business owner, a former employer and a former apprentice—I am not quite sure what happened between then and now, but that is another issue—would know that a well-trained worker is not only a safe worker but a productive worker. Apparently, that is not of interest to the minister. What is of interest to the minister is making sure that the voices of workers and those who represent them are silenced. Instead, the only voices that get heard around the table of the Construction Industry Training Board are those voices that he himself wants to hear.

He is giving himself the unfettered power to appoint people to this position. Indeed, as we are seeing on the Training and Skills Commission, by and large those voices are those of employers and not of workers or their representatives. I think it is a shameful start for the minister. He can be congratulated and glad-handed on putting more money into training—not many people would disagree with that—but at the same time to be denuding workers of the opportunity to be represented in this forum, making sure that their needs and the industry's requirements are not heard from the worker's perspective, is terrible.

Those other boards, those other forums, those other round tables that currently require employee representatives to be heard, to have a seat around the table and to be listened to—are they next? Are we going to see a push by this Liberal government to say to South Australian public servants, 'Your right, enshrined in legislation, to have somebody popularly elected from contributors to the Super SA Board is now gone'? We know how the Liberal Party thinks about retail versus industry super funds.

Of course, it is important for corporate interests to be placed above the benefits of workers. That is what is happening with the Construction Industry Training Board. Is this what is going to happen to public servant superannuation? Is this what is going to happen to future appointments of ReturnToWorkSA, where we consider only the voices of levy-paying employers, rather than those of people who are in the best position to represent impacted workers?

This is a terrible bill by a government that should know better. I appreciate that, for whatever reason, the minister is very passionate about his ideological pursuit of trying to rid himself, his government and this state of the influence of employee representatives, but it is a sad day when we see either house of this parliament support this sort of legislation.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (15:58): I have just listened carefully to the remarks of the member for Lee. He may be hastening to depart the chamber, but I make the observation that in his remarks he was really preaching to an ever-diminishing choir.

In my remarks on the second reading speech, I repeated often enough—and the member for Ramsay asked that I perhaps desist in my repetition of reference to it—that knowledge, skills and experience are the criteria that the minister now must apply in terms of seeking out the merits upon which participants in the board will be placed. It bears emphasising in this context that clause 8 of the bill repeals both schedule 2 and schedule 3 of the act. For the benefit of those opposite, and for those who are following the debate, section 5 of the act at present requires that the minister form the board from persons nominated by both employer and employee associations.

More specifically, and to the member for Lee's complaint about the way in which that is presently structured, five persons are specified to be nominated by employer associations—five persons, no less. Three persons are to be nominated by the employee associations that are set out in the schedule—so, less. What we find in schedule 2 and schedule 3 is a narrow group of prescribed associations. As the act is presently drafted, we have a very narrow range of persons who are members of certain associations from whom may be nominated members of the board.

The bill would delete those schedules and amend section 5 of the act so as to make the only criteria for participation those who, together, have the knowledge, skills and experience necessary to enable the board to carry out its functions effectively—so no prescription. No longer will the act specify that unless you are a member of the Australian Building and Construction Workers Federation or the Australian Workers' Union or the Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia or the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining Energy Union, you do not get a look in.

By the same token, it also deletes schedule 2, which provides that if you want one of those places on the board then you need to be a member of those listed employer associations set out in the relevant schedule. It bears emphasising, in light of what really sounded like remarks from the member for Lee that were all about placing on the record some sort of adherence to those to whom he may feel beholden, that really the overriding sentiment was a great deal of self-consciousness on the part of the member for Lee around what he regarded as being somehow under threat in these amendments.

Far from it: the bill opens the door to merit, and the bill opens the door to assessment criteria for participation based entirely on merit. That is plain on the face of the document. It removes prescription and leaves in its place only criteria based on merit. We need not be self-conscious on this side of the house, we need not be focused on a need to preach to that diminishing choir but, rather, we ought continue our focus on achieving the best outcomes by making sure that we attract the best people on the merits, based on skill, knowledge and experience. I commend the bill.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Industry and Skills) (16:04): I would like to respond to some of the faux rage we have heard. First of all, I want to correct this illusion of crisis being generated by those opposite. There is no rush. This bill had its second reading 13 days ago and it has been on the table ever since, so I am not sure where the claim that it has been on the table for fewer than 10 days has come from. Unfortunately, that is wrong. It was 24 October when I introduced this bill with the second reading and it has been accessible to the shadow minister. I do not know how the Labor caucus operates, but I suspect that she is responsible for preparing a recommendation for the caucus.

For the benefit of those in the chamber, on 25 October, the day after the bill had its second reading, my office contacted the Hon. Clare Scriven and offered her a briefing. It was Monday the 29th before the Hon. Clare Scriven got back to my office. There were two follow-up calls from my office to the Hon. Clare Scriven in the other place. The only time the member was available was Monday the 5th, which was yesterday, so we provided the briefing for the Hon. Clare Scriven at a time of her request.

We were very accommodating. We followed it up and contacted her the day after. We contacted the shadow minister 12 days ago to offer her a briefing on the bill. I know that she is new to this place, but I can tell you that I only wish I had had that service from the Labor Party when they were in government. I had to chase like crazy to get briefings on bills, and it was at a time that suited the government, rather than at a time that suited the opposition. That is fine; that was the way that the previous government and Labor Party operated in office. That is on the record.

There are two significant points here that dismiss the absolute hysteria, the faux hysteria, the illusion of crisis, the illusion of conspiracy that those opposite want to try to generate, just like when they were in office. They could not deliver good government, so they focused on creating an illusion of action, an illusion of things happening. They are now trying to create an illusion of crisis, an illusion of conspiracy. There is no conspiracy: this is about delivering training opportunities for those in the building sector in South Australia.

It is about getting the best possible value and best possible outcome from the significant amount of money being raised off the back of the mortgages of those very workers whom those opposite claim to represent. I find it somewhat amusing that the Leader of the Opposition grew up in middle-class suburbs around Mitcham and went to the most expensive Catholic school in the state, and the member for Lee, the son of a judge, went to Pulteney Grammar School. For some reason, they are the champions of the workers.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is a point of order, minister. Could you take a seat, please.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: My concern is relevance. I think personal commentary on people's—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, I uphold the point of order. Minister.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Thank you, sir. The facts are that we are committed to delivering more training opportunities in the building industry in South Australia. There were changes recommended after the 2004 review that the previous government sat on, and why did they sit on it? Because they were much more interested in their next preselection, which required the support of the union movement.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: relevance to the bill. Preselections are not the focus of this bill.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, the minister has the opportunity to respond to concerns that were raised in the third reading speech from the opposition. The minister will contain his remarks to those, given that it is the third reading.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Mr Deputy Speaker, I did not hear the member for Ramsay calling a point of order on the member for Lee when the member for Lee was making an outrageous attack on me. My brother is the assistant secretary of the CEPU, and he made outrageous allegations about my views on unions—totally hysterical, sir.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Minister, if I can just come in here, we are on the third reading. The standing orders are quite specific about what can be contained within the third reading speeches. What you will need to do particularly is to contain yourself to a response to those third reading speeches.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Thank you very much, sir. Just for the benefit of the parliament, the department has put together a quick summary of the make-up of similar bodies—construction training and industry boards—in other states, and a summary of the type of discretion the minister has.

In the ACT—we all know that it is naturally a Labor state—the minister has broad ministerial discretion to appoint the board. Obviously, there is a process. The appointment method is that the minister is to consider the contribution the person can make to the goals and objectives of the government in governing the board and any criteria in government policy. As you can see, it is criteria that gives the minister substantial discretion to make sure they get the best person for that role.

In Tasmania, there is broad ministerial discretion. There, the minister is to give public notice inviting expressions of interest to board appointments—a radical process, according to those opposite. According to the proposal we are putting through our amendments, it is a radical proposal by people who hate the unions, apparently. However, here we are in Tasmania. A board was set up in 1990 and the criteria there is that the minister gives public notice for expressions of interest for board appointments.

In Western Australia, there is a very similar set-up. The composition of the board contains industry representation and independent members. Members are appointed by the minister after consultation with prescribed lists, so there is ministerial discretion subject to consultation with the industry—ministerial discretion. Queensland, again, has broad ministerial discretion. In South Australia, the minister is obligated to accept nominations from employer and employer obligations—limited ministerial discretion. The limit is that it is either appoint those who are nominated from either one of those two groups or do not appoint anybody. That is the limit of the discretion.

As you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, what we are doing is modernising the board. We have looked at best practice around Australia where it is working. The current South Australian model is unique, as there is no other model like it. It is the most prescriptive model we have and is a model that inhibits any ministerial discretion.

If it was so important that the unions had a dedicated position on boards, such as the CITB, as the Labor Party opposite are arguing, why did they design a TAFE board that had full ministerial discretion? What could be more important than vocational education and TAFE? If it was so important for the workers to be represented, if you believe the argument from those opposite, when they separated TAFE from the government process and made it a statutory body why did they not have compulsory positions set aside for union members? Why did they not do it? It is because it is all phony. It is faux rage over there. It is hypocrisy on the other side of the chamber and it is a faux conspiracy.

The facts are that this bill is about getting much better outcomes for apprenticeships, traineeships and skills in general in the building industry in South Australia and that is the only motivation.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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