Mr ORGAN (12:54 PM) —I rise in continuation on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Bill 2003 and the Building and Construction Industry Improvement (Consequential and Transitional) Bill 2003. When I was interrupted last night, I was speaking about the Cole royal commission and pointing out to the House that there were 194,300 businesses in the building and construction industry and that $5 million was being set aside by this government for both the Federal Safety Commissioner and the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner. That $5 million equates to the grand sum of $25.73 per business—$25.73 to spend on protecting each and every worker in the building and construction industry in Australia. That paltry sum speaks volumes about the government's neglectful approach to workplace safety.

Undoubtedly, workers in critical situations will have difficulty in contacting one of the new federal safety officers, with their calls invariably being placed in a queue—and having to press one then five for assistance et cetera—all the while adding to the risk of death or serious injury due to unnecessary delay and processing time. Surely, even the most passionate anti-union ideologue would think the government should ditch its administratively short-sighted proposal in the interests of protecting the community, families and citizens. However, if you listen to the government they would have you believe that the construction and building industry is riddled with lawlessness—almost Wild West style. We have heard some speakers from the other side of the House make that accusation.

My view is different. It is different because I have looked at this issue from the perspective of the workers who make our skyscrapers, schools and sports stadiums—the workers who build our community and who built this very parliament and perhaps even the chair you are seated on at the moment, Mr Deputy Speaker Hawker. When you consider theses bills from a worker's perspective—from the view of workers who routinely do hard, unrelenting and dangerous work—it is clear that this legislation is insulting, unreasonable and unnecessary. The government must go back to the drawing board with these bills and incorporate the amendment that I will be moving at the end of my speech—an amendment that responds to the inadequacies of chapter 4 of the main bill and to the real issue facing workers, particularly building and construction workers in this country. That issue is workplace safety, and the fact that industrial manslaughter legislation with terms of imprisonment for negligent employers who kill does not feature on the statute books in any Australian jurisdiction—apart from the ACT, where landmark legislation was passed last week with the support of the ALP and the Greens.

More people in Australia die at, or because of, their work than they do on the roads, but still the government sits on its hands and presents us with a 200-page bill that basically misses the mark. This government could help reduce the carnage that costs lives and causes trauma, but it chooses not to. Instead, it fiddles around the edges with OH&S legislation—which, to be brutally frank, is not working—and it hides behind the false argument that it does not have the constitutional power to introduce industrial manslaughter legislation and to incorporate it as part of the bills before us.

I am no lawyer or academic, but I do know one thing about this argument that makes its conclusion false. That is the fact that there are only seven people in Australia who can assess the constitutionality of any legislation—not the Attorney General, not the workplace relations minister, not the Treasurer, not the premiers of New South Wales or Tasmania, not the Governor-General and not even the Prime Minister himself. In fact, the only people who have the power to assess the constitutionality of any law in this entire nation coming from any parliament are our High Court judges. That is what they do and that is their fundamental role, along with being the highest court in the land. So claims that federal industrial manslaughter laws are unconstitutional and claims by the minister that they do not fit into this legislation that we are currently discussing are false. This point alone reveals the government's position as being one that puts profit over lives and relies upon a clear-cut falsity to do so.

If the government wants industrial peace in the building and construction industry the first step that is needed is the insistence on and promotion of safety. These bills do not do that and instead focus on attacking the rights of workers and unions, who are already in very vulnerable positions. The way forward—which has existed in Great Britain since the early 1990s—is to criminalise industrial manslaughter and serious injury in circumstances of neglect, in the same way as a person who negligently drives a car and causes the death or grievous bodily harm of another will face jail. It is only fair. It is patently ridiculous that employers have immunity from imprisonment when they negligently kill workers at work but face the full wrath of the law if they negligently kill that very same person at home or on the street—away from the workplace. Criminalising industrial manslaughter—and not this bill before us—is one of the keys to industrial peace and goodwill, because it will reduce the instances of death and serious injury in the Australian building and construction industry. But this government does not see it that way. It prefers to sit back and let the carnage continue.

The statistics are out there: in 1997-98, 48 construction workers were killed; in the following year, 1998-99, 58 were killed; in 1999-2000, 48 were killed; in 2000-01, 44 were killed; and, in 2001-02, 39 were killed. In addition, 37 manufacturing workers were killed and 50 transport and storage workers were killed. At the very least, a significant proportion of those deaths were entirely preventable. We should be putting more effort and resources into bringing these numbers down, as we do in attempting to lower the death toll on our roads. The federal government should really be looking at this issue.

The bills before us should have addressed the issue of industrial manslaughter, but they do not. With all this death and dangerous work, is it any wonder that workers join unions? It may prove a matter of life or death, as it has already in many instances, for unions have saved lives in this industry. The clauses in this legislation which put restrictions on unions and union delegates and their ability to enter workplaces, I would suggest, are going to put people's lives at risk and increase their chances of being injured, and there is ample evidence of that. Unions and delegates have enabled families to rest assured that loved ones will arrive home from work, safe and sound.

In presenting these bills, the government is suggesting that the health of the industry is contingent on their passage. I disagree, for the construction industry is generally a healthy one, where profits exceed the average of other industries and where billions of dollars of profit are routinely generated. So the justification for these bills is revealed for what it is. I think that is an important part of this debate: why are these bills currently before us?

The legislation is not about ensuring jobs or the long-term survival of the industry; it is about maximising profits for construction companies, as well as being the latest instalment of this government's anti-union dogma. That is right: these bills are merely an application of neo-Liberal ideology. The industry is profitable and not in need of this drastic legislative surgery. Companies make billions of dollars, thanks in the main part to the efforts of workers. Workers should share in these profits, yet this government would rather see their wages and conditions further restricted and limits placed on their effective representation by the union of their choice. The Prime Minister's claim that no worker would be worse off under this government is a hollow one indeed.

The Cole royal commission showed us just how healthy the building and construction industry is. For the years 1999-2000, 76.6 per cent of all building and construction industries made a profit which exceeded the national average of all industries, while more construction and building industry firms broke even than the average of all industries. Better still, these firms were less likely than other industries to make a loss. Clearly then, by the Cole royal commission's own figures, the construction and building industry makes more money more often, breaks even more often and loses money less often than other industries throughout the nation. The government's talk of a crisis in the sector is alarmist nonsense, with its foundation based on fiction.

Why then the need for these bills? The minister tells us that they are a key plank in the most significant reform of the building industry ever attempted. Why the need for reform when the sector is so healthy? Who is making this push? Is it the big end of town? Is it developers and business owners who wish to generate even more profits at the expense of workers? Talk about greed! Grocon Constructions, for example, generated $600 million in revenue over the year ended 30 June 2003, up from $425 million on the year before. Meriton Apartments generated over a billion dollars over the same period, up from $850 million on the year before. Multiplex made over $2.28 billion, up from $1.4 billion, whilst Lend Lease made a net after-tax profit of $174 million, and the year before it made $239 million.

What is the relevance of these bills, you may ask, and the reason that they are before us now? The Business Review Weekly of 14 August 2003, in an article entitled `The property kings', states that Walker Constructions holds over $2 billion in assets and that the developer Mirvac expects to make $220 million in profits this year, while Meriton Apartments holds over $1 billion in assets. It seems clear to me that the industry is awash with money and profits. These bills are therefore tainted because large construction companies feature prominently on the donations register of the Liberal Party, and they give the distinct impression that they are a pay-off for those donations. Both Lend Lease and Leighton Holdings have each donated over $100,000 to the New South Wales Liberal Party since 1998. Meriton Apartments has given $145,000 and Multiplex tops this list with over $250,000. In fact, property donors and building and construction industry donors have given over $2.63 million to the New South Wales Liberals in the period mentioned.

So is it any wonder that legislation such as this comes before this chamber? It is legislation that clearly alters the relationship between workers and employers. It is legislation that manifestly benefits employers and burdens workers. Unlike this government, the Australian Greens put people first. Profits must take second place to the safety of individual workers. There is no argument there. That is why we believe industrial manslaughter and serious injury caused by proven negligence should be criminalised with jail terms. That should be a part of these bills. Accordingly, had I not been gazumped by the member for Rankin, I would have moved the following amendment to the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Bill 2003:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

“This House rejects the Bill and:

(1) notes the unacceptably high levels of death and serious injuries in the building and construction industry and across all work-places and therefore demands that the Government introduce industrial man-slaughter legislat-ion immediately that provides for prison terms of:

(a) 25 years for employers that are found to have killed an employee through proven criminal negligence;

(b) 10 years imprisonment for employers that are found to seriously injure an employee through proven criminal negligence;

(c) fines of up to $50 million for corporations and $5 million for company directors that negligently kill or seriously injure employees;

(2) condemns the Government's attempts at restricting the rights of people to be properly represented by their relevant union in the construction industry; and

(3) re-affirms the inherent value of trade unions in protecting and advancing the pay and conditions of employment for all workers.

Noting the member for Rankin's and the opposition's concern about workplace death and the specific case of Joel Exner and in light of ACT Labor supporting industrial manslaughter legislation just last week, I ask the member to withdraw his amendment so the real issue of industrial manslaughter can be addressed by this chamber and my amendment can be put.