Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1) Bill 2026

Senator HUME (Victoria—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:48): I rise to speak on the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1) Bill 2026. This bill is really a tale of two stories, and the first deserves our support, but the second story deserves serious condemnation. The first part contains very sensible reforms to help the Fair Work Commission manage an unprecedented workload, but the second part fundamentally changes Commonwealth procurement to allow for governments to preference businesses that have union backed enterprise agreements.

So one is about fixing a problem, but the other is about pursuing Labor ideology and placing corruption at the centre of Commonwealth procurement. The coalition supports the first, but of course we oppose the second. The tragedy is that, once again, Labor has bundled something that's entirely uncontroversial with something that is deeply controversial.

It's using the very sensible Fair Work Commission reforms as a cover for something completely unrelated, and that is a union procurement agenda. That seems surprising because the government is led by a prime minister who, at his very first press conference after his elevation, promised to lead a government that doesn't seek to divide and doesn't seek to have wedges.

Even more surprising, as opposition leader Anthony Albanese, now prime minister, criticised what he called 'wedge-islation'. Those are his words; they are not mine. He said, 'People are sick of a government that has "wedge-islation", as I call it, looking to wedge the opposition rather than legislation.' Well, Prime Minister, take your own advice.

If the Fair Work Commission reforms are good policy—and they are—let them stand on their own. If the procurement bargaining provisions are good policy, bring them forward in a separate bill and make a case for them rather than ramming them through the Senate with limited scrutiny and limited debate. Instead, what Labor has done is that they've bundled them together in the hope that the parliament will swallow the controversial provisions to secure the uncontroversial ones.

That's exactly the kind of 'wedge-islation' that the Prime Minister himself once condemned. Let's turn to the Fair Work Commission reforms themselves. Last year, President Justice Adam Hatcher publicly spoke about the extraordinary increase in claims that the commission was facing.

Earlier this year, the commission's general manager warned that increasing workloads, growing numbers of self-represented applicants, budget constraints and the rise of generative AI were all placing strain on every part of the commission's operations. Those warnings were ignored. Now, after months of inaction, Labor has finally produced legislation to help the commission, and, as I say, that is welcome.

But hidden away in part 9 of this bill is a completely unrelated procurement agenda that has nothing to do with the Fair Work Commission's backlog. That's why the coalition this week introduced its own bill. Our bill contains every Fair Work Commission reform that the commission asked for—every single one.

What it doesn't contain though is Labor's dirty union procurement deal. The coalition's bill could pass today, no problem. It could have passed last week.

If the government was serious, the Fair Work Commission could have had its reforms ready to go on a platter. The only reason it doesn't is because Labor has insisted on attaching part 9. The Fair Work Commission asked for workload reforms.

It did not ask for procurement bargaining provisions. Actually, the only people that did ask for those procurement bargaining provisions were Labor's donors and their favourite protection racket, the CFMEU. I'll deal with the CFMEU later on.

Let me deal briefly with the Fair Work Commission's reforms first. The coalition supports restoring the commission's ability to move quickly into conciliation without first becoming bogged down in technical jurisdictional disputes. This is something that is perfectly fair and reasonable.

We also support allowing appropriate procedural powers to be delegated to senior commission staff rather than commissioner themselves. That also is perfectly fair and reasonable. We support giving the commission stronger powers to deal with frivolous and vexatious litigants.

We think this is really important and should have been done a long time ago. We support allowing matters to be determined on the papers, where it's appropriate and where parties consent. Again, perfectly sensible requests.

These are practical reforms that reduce delay. They reduce cost, and they help workers and employees and employers resolve disputes more quickly. Why is this important?

Because justice delayed is justice denied. There are also a number of sensible technical amendments that are uncontroversial, and the coalition supports those as well. There is one measure concerning a separate high-income threshold for road transport contractors that we believe deserves additional scrutiny through a Senate inquiry.

But none of these matters explain part 9. Part 9 has nothing to do with the Fair Work Commission's efficiency—absolutely nothing. Part 9 changes the Fair Work Act so that the Commonwealth can preference businesses with union backed enterprise agreements when awarding taxpayer funded contracts, grants and procurement arrangements.

Those preferences don't just apply to the businesses that are directly in contract with the government; they also can extend through supply chains as well. This is a major policy change—and not an unfamiliar one, I might add. It's one we've seen before in Queensland, where the Palaszczuk government saw it lead to extraordinary corruption and the misuse of enterprise bargaining in the directing of taxpayer dollars.

Yet federal Labor has tried to hide it inside a bill that's supposedly about helping the Fair Work Commission. That should concern every business in Australia—particularly every small business—every tenderer and every Australian. As stakeholders have said, it places risk of corruption written into law.

The minister says: 'Don't worry about this. It's a bill that does not impose any obligation on the Commonwealth. There is no obligation, so you don't need to worry about it.' For goodness sake, if Labor has no intention of using these powers, why is it legislating for them?

Governments don't create powers that they don't intend to use. The government says, 'Don't worry about that—all the detail is going to be contained in the Secure Australian Jobs Code.' Terrific, but where is that code? Where is it, Minister?

Let's be honest: the consultation for that code closed months ago, and parliament hasn't seen it. Business hasn't seen it. The Australian people haven't seen it.

Yet Labor wants parliament to pass legislation that has the legal framework before anyone's actually seen the policy. That's backwards. Parliament is being asked to, essentially, sign the cheque before it's seen the invoice.

Government procurement should be based on one thing, and one thing alone, and that is value for money—value for money, capability and compliance with the law—not on whether a business has signed an industrial agreement that is preferred by the government. This bill changes that. The government says that this is about enterprise bargaining, but that misses the point entirely.

There's nothing wrong with enterprise bargaining. In fact, it's been an established part of Australia's workplace relations system for years. Employers and employees are free to enter enterprise agreements if they choose.

But the question here is something entirely different: should governments use taxpayer funded contracts to favour businesses with certain industrial relations arrangements? The coalition says no. We say no, and we are not alone.

The consequences of this change extend well beyond head contractors. The bill expressly allows these arrangements to operate through contractual chains. A Commonwealth contract can affect subcontractors too.

Subcontractors can affect suppliers. Entire supply chains may ultimately feel the pressure of this one, seemingly innocuous, change. That's a profound change to the Commonwealth Procurement Rules, and it deserves proper scrutiny.

Instead, Labor wants to rush it through the parliament. We all know where this road ends. We've seen it before: Queensland's Best Practice Industry Conditions policy, the BPIC, became synonymous with increased costs, reduced competition and lower productivity.

The Queensland government abolished it, but here we are again. This time, federal Labor wants to recreate the same policy at the Commonwealth level. It's doing so while Australia is still coming to terms with the fallout in Queensland and still coming to terms with the shocking revelations surrounding the CFMEU.

The Watson report should be compulsory reading for every member of this parliament. It described an enterprise agreement system in Victorian construction that had become, in Geoffrey Watson's words, 'thoroughly corrupted'. He described old-fashioned pay-to-play corruption.

He found that there was, effectively, no genuine bargaining. A CFMEU official was quoted as saying: "There is no bargaining … nothing will be changed in this agreement." Mr Watson warned only this week about creating new systems that concentrate power over access to taxpayer funded work. He said: … the power to give an EBA was concentrated in the hands of a few people, and that meant that it was very, very easily corrupted … It meant that the people who held that power could control the market.

He also warned that: … people will pay bribes to get EBAs. People will solicit bribes to give EBAs. After everything that Australians have learned over the last year, why would any government deliberately create another system that concentrates power over access to taxpayer funded work?

That's the question that Labor can't answer. Business groups have been united in their criticisms. The Business Council of Australia has described these provisions as 'a corruption risk written into law'.

Bran Black, the head of the BCA, warned that 'every Australian will pay for it', and the Business Council has said that these provisions reach 'every corner of the economy', including infrastructure, energy, health and defence. Ai Group says that the proposal risks undermining one of the cornerstones of Australia's workplace relations system, which is freedom of association, something we should all hold dear.

It warns that these provisions open the door to governments forcing employers and employees to strike deals with unions in order to commercially deal with the government. That's the prerequisite. Its conclusion is simple: the simplest course would be to abandon this proposal entirely.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has described it as a 'sneaky move to aid union mates'. Master Builders Australia warns that lawful businesses operating under rewards, including those paying above award wages may be disadvantaged, despite doing absolutely nothing wrong. These are not fringe organisations.

These are Australia's peak employment bodies. They all see the same risk, and the coalition sees it too. This debate is not about whether enterprise agreements are good or whether they're bad; it's about whether governments should use taxpayer funded procurement to favour businesses with those particular industrial arrangements.

That's a very different question. Labor says: 'Oh, construction will be carved out. Don't worry about that.' Well, show us where.

It's not in this bill. There's no carve out in this bill. Parliament legislates the words before us, not ministerial assurances, not media releases and not promises about a future jobs code that nobody has seen.

The path forward is actually very simple: pass the Fair Work Commission reforms, give the commission the tools it's been looking for, reduce those delays and help workers and employers resolve disputes more quickly. The coalition supports all of those reforms. Not only that; we introduced our own legislation to demonstrate that.

But we reject Labor's dirty union procurement deal. Don't use the Fair Work Commission's workload as a cover for a completely unrelated agenda, don't ask the parliament to pass a legal framework before releasing the policy and don't make government contracts depend on whether a business has signed Labor's preferred industrial agreement. The Fair Work Commission has asked for practical reforms.

It did not ask for part 9. Business didn't ask for part 9. Taxpayers didn't ask for part 9.

The only people asking for part 9 are those who stand to benefit from it, and who would that be? Surprise, it's the union movement. Labor is the political arm of the union movement.

Of course, you are doing this. But the consequences are so profound. Your responsibilities are greater here.

In 2018, the corrupt CFMEU produced a wish list of policies for a future Labor government, and guess what? That list includes holding a referendum on the Voice—tick, it did that. It includes preferencing union agreements—tick.

And it includes implementing government procurement rules to support trade unionism—tick. What's next? We're all wondering.

Just read the list. The coalition supports practical reforms that improve the operation of the Fair Work Commission, but we cannot support this bill while it contains these procurement bargaining provisions and introduces corruption risk to every taxpayer dollar we spend on procurement. That's why we've moved amendments to remove part 9.

If those amendments are agreed to, we'll support the bill. If they are not, we cannot support this bill.