QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator COLBECK (Tasmania) (15:58): The presentation that we've just heard shows how Labor just don't get it, and how they just can't connect the dots when it comes to their actions in government and the implications of their actions in government. This is a government proudly boasting that they're going to spend $43 billion on housing under the housing plan, and yet they're going to build fewer few houses than the coalition built in its last five years.
They talk about their ambition, but everybody knows they're going to build fewer houses than the coalition did in its last five years in government, and the houses that they do build are going to be more expensive. That's the deal. That's the deal from this government.
Going back to the questions asked by my colleagues with respect to the actions of the CFMEU, that is a big part of the problem. This government doesn't connect the dots. It doesn't understand the implications of its own policy, but it's the Australian people who are having to deal with the implications of that policy.
Senator Sheldon made mention of the fact that, as he claimed, nobody is mentioning the construction industry, the building firms, with respect to this debate. But I join Senator Sheldon in condemning their involvement, their payment of bribes. These construction companies are where a lot of this money is coming from, as well as money coming out the other end in more expensive houses being built by these companies because they're paying the bribes down through the system.
They should get the book thrown at them too. I'm with Senator Sheldon on that. These companies deserve to be properly investigated.
But the problem is that the Labor Party, through its own legislation, is the facilitator of the actions and the activities of the CFMEU. Of course I was pretty suspicious of this administration process when the Labor Party brought its legislation into the parliament. I have to say I was prepared to give Mark Irving KC a bit of a go.
I thought he was going to have a serious crack in relation to this matter, but I have to say that the more it goes on the more concerned I become. I think my concerns are legitimate. Mr Irving was appointed to clean up the CFMEU and restore integrity, but we saw on last night's television that that is not the case.
This is not about us versus the union. These are conflicts within the union. This is union member versus union member, where gangs of union delegates turn up to have a go at other union members.
On what basis is any of that acceptable? The longer this five-year process goes on, the more I become suspicious that this was about giving it all enough time for the issue to go away, to be dealt with quietly so Labor could pretend, as they have from the outset—remember they were surprised that these things were occurring within the CFMEU. It was news to them that this sort of behaviour was going on inside the CFMEU.
We know it wasn't, because they all sit around the national executive table of the Australian Labor Party together. They don't want this information coming out and being public. Good on the journalists and those involved who continue to ferret things out, but it's becoming a pattern—media story, then action; media story, then action.
The Labor Party can quote all the stats they like to us, but this needs to be cleaned up, because it's costing Australians. It's Australians that are bearing the cost of the Labor Party's inaction, and their real unwillingness to clean up the CFMEU. It's costing Australians fewer and more expensive houses.
The Labor Party really ought to be doing their job properly in cleaning up this terrible union. Question agreed to.