Senator FORSHAW (1:26 PM) —I thought I was only going to speak for about 10 minutes but, after Senator Santoro's speech, I will probably take the full 20 minutes. Once again, we have this government introducing a piece of legislation which has two purposes only. The first purpose is to further restrict the rights of trade unions—democratic, registered trade unions—in this country from protecting and enhancing the rights and conditions of employment of workers in this country. That is the purpose of this legislation, just as it is the purpose of almost every other piece of workplace relations legislation that this government has introduced into this parliament since it took office.

I think this is about the third or fourth time that this bill has been brought before the parliament. It has been rejected on three occasions, but this government rolls it back in again. Why does it bring it back again? It is not because it really believes that this is going to improve the prospects of employment for people in this country. It is not because it believes that this is going to enhance the orderly negotiations that should take place and, in just about every case, do take place under the industrial relations system in this country. It brings it back because it wants to have another trigger for a double dissolution. That is the second purpose. It is a cynical attempt to set up a situation where the government has a number of pieces of rejected legislation, so that, if the Prime Minister gets it into his head to call a double dissolution, he will have the constitutional requirements to do so.

There are far more important issues affecting this nation and the world today than this piece of drivel. The government should focus on the important issues affecting this nation in terms of both the international situation and domestic issues. It should focus on the issues that the Australian people are focused on and on which they want leadership from their government, rather than just coming back here with its ideological obsession to beat workers and trade unions around the head.

Senator Santoro, in his speech, asked, `Why shouldn't the Labor Party support secret ballots for workers before industrial action is taken?' Let me answer Senator Santoro's question. We support employees— whether they are members of unions or not— having their say in the decisions that they and their representative organisations make. If you look at both the current act and the previous legislation, which goes way back to 1904, you will see enshrined in there the principle of membership involvement in trade unions and employees' involvement in the development of their own employment conditions.

As a trade union official who spent 18 years in the trade union movement and was National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union—the union which Senator Santoro just referred to—I can tell you that it was the members themselves who made the decision, as a last resort, to take industrial action by withdrawing their labour. They made the decision in meetings where they all had their say and could stand up and vote for or against the proposition to take industrial action.

Senator FORSHAW —Senator Santoro, when this legislation finally comes to a vote in this parliament it is not going to be a secret ballot. It is going to be a ballot held on the floor of this chamber, which is one of the two houses of this great democracy we have, and we will all stand up and be counted as members of this parliament. We should not be afraid to stand up and vote according to the views that we hold, and that is the same principle that operates throughout this democracy, whether it be in organisations such as trade unions or in organisations such as community clubs and the like. The concept that every time you have a ballot it has to be a secret ballot is not one that is absolute in the democratic process.

The fact of the matter is that the process has worked well for almost 100 years in this country, since the Conciliation and Arbitration Act was first passed. I can say quite confidently that members of trade unions—and that is where this legislation is directed— have a far greater say in the running of those organisations than shareholders do in the running of companies in this country. You have only to look at recent examples to see that that is correct.

As was raised by way of opposition interjections—and I am sure my good colleague Senator Hogg will raise this too—this legislation does not say, `If we are going to propose secret ballots for employees and union members before they take industrial action, there should also be a secret ballot of the shareholders of the corporation before a decision to lock out those employees is taken.' I do not recall that ever being advanced by anybody on the coalition side of this debate. It does not suit their ideology. You see, they would rather have a situation where management or the board of directors make the decision, and that happens constantly in the corporations in this country.

In trying to respond to that proposition, Senator Santoro said, `They're different areas of law.' They are not different areas of law at all when you are dealing with the employee-employer relations that exist within a company. Employment law applies equally to the employees and to the employer— which often is a company or a registered corporation. Therefore, it applies to the company's shareholders, because the shareholders are the owners of the company. It applies as equally to them as it does to the employees. So if you are going to advance these half-baked, crazy propositions, then at least try and get some consistency into your arguments. But, of course, that is what happens with the coalition on so many of these issues. There is never any consistency. It is all about tipping the balance in favour of the employers that coalition members think they represent.

I say to members of the government, `Go out and talk to businesses as we in unions have done for years and years.' One of the interesting things about this whole debate is that union officials spend more time talking to company representatives, human relations people and IR managers in businesses. We spend more time talking to them than any of you lot do! It was our day-to-day business to sit down with employers and negotiate wages and conditions. As an official of the union I was constantly dealing with employers in a huge range of industries that the AWU was involved in. We did not spend every single minute of every day talking about strikes—it was probably less than one per cent of our time.

We were dealing with day-to-day issues such as health and safety, and issues which actually affected the number of employees that that company had. When companies got into economic difficulties they would come and talk to us about those things. We talked to them about a whole range of issues such as how we might cooperatively advance the interests of their business and promote employment, and we did that constantly, day after day. We understand better than you people in the coalition what businesses need. I found that employer representatives—and I notice that in his remarks Senator Santoro paid tribute to officials of the AWU—wanted a system where they could sit down with representative organisations and discuss and negotiate the management of industrial relations in their business. That was our history.

Senator Santoro also said in his remarks that there was a massive, constant wave of industrial disputes across this country in the seventies, eighties and nineties. Frankly, that is just not true. If you have a look at the statistics you will see that it is not true. There were, no doubt, individual cases where there were major disputes, but to suggest that this country was on its knees—that it was almost out of business because of massive industrial disputation through all of the years of the Hawke-Keating governments and even through the years of this government—is a nonsense proposition. You are still locked back in a time warp where you think that Bob Menzies is the real Prime Minister. You are trying to head back to the fifties, and I will concede there were some issues at that time. When employees are constantly faced with the threat of the sack and the threat of a lockout—we saw Mr Corrigan try those tactics—you will get serious industrial disputation, in most cases provoked by rogue employers.

Let me turn to the legislation. What does this bill require? This bill requires that a secret ballot be held before industrial action which would be deemed to be protected industrial action under the Workplace Relations Act is taken. But it also requires, as part of that broad proposition, that it be a postal ballot. So first of all what you do is to say, `Well, it has to be a secret ballot.' So employees are not able to come together at their workplace and discuss the issues at that time. Then, having been in a situation such as we are in this chamber—discussing the issues and getting reports on how the negotiations are going—they are not able to proceed to a vote, which is what happens now when union meetings or meetings of employees are held on job sites.

Senator FORSHAW —That is the way the process works, Senator Eggleston. I know you have no idea about how it works. You might tell us one day how it works in the Australian Medical Association. How many secret ballots does the AMA have, Senator Eggleston? I would be interested to know how many they have. I would be interested to know how many secret ballots the Law Society of Tasmania or the Bar Association of Queensland have. How many secret ballots do they have before they make decisions?

Senator Abetz —They do.

Senator FORSHAW —Senator Abetz is sitting there saying, `They do.' We will check it out. As well as having been a union official, Senator Abetz, I do have some legal qualifications and I know a little bit about how those organisations work, and I know that that is a nonsense proposition. They do not hold a secret ballot for every single decision they make—you know that, and I know that.

Government senators interjecting—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Bolkus)—Order! Senators on my right, would you please stay quiet. That includes you, Senator Abetz.

Senator FORSHAW —This proposition would remove the ability to have an open ballot of employees or members at a workplace; rather, it would require a postal ballot. So you build in a time delay. You are at a critical point in the negotiations and the negotiations have broken down. Employees have a right to make a decision and to take protected industrial action. They have a right to take industrial action which has been recognised in employment law for hundreds of years—the right to, as a last resort, withdraw their labour. Rather, the government say that they have got to have a postal ballot and to build in a delay. Then they have to prepare a roll. Well, that will take a few days, or maybe a week or more by the time the machinery gets into action. Then not only do you have those requirements but a minimum of 40 per cent of the people have to vote— you have to have a quorum.

Interestingly enough, in the Corporations Law, when votes are taken—and that is generally only at annual general meetings or special meetings of a company that are called by a corporation—it is the directors that invariably have the say, because they hold all the proxies. We do not have proxy voting in trade unions, but that, of course, is a feature of Corporations Law. I am not opposed to proxy voting per se, but that is one of the reasons why you have a concentration of power in the boards or in the management of the major corporations in this country. It probably helps to explain why we have had such massive collapses as we have seen recently with HIH and One.Tel, and the fallout from that, as well as the situation at AMP. In these cases, billions and billions of dollars of shareholders' funds—the funds of ordinary Australian taxpayers who are shareholders in those companies—have been lost. And yet, the people who made those decisions walk out the door with possibly $10 million, $20 million and $30 million in their pockets. That is the sort of situation that you people in the government promote. You come in here and say, `The greatest problem facing this country is the threat of industrial action in one company and, therefore, you have to have a secret ballot of the members.' `Get real,' I say. Get away from your ideological obsession about beating down on workers. Start focusing on doing something about fixing up the mess that exists in corporate Australia, where the hard earned savings of workers in this country are being lost because of mismanagement and, in a number of cases, straight out criminal activities.

I think I have covered the issues that I wanted to cover in the 10 minutes that I was going to speak for—I was provoked into speaking for longer. I am now going to leave it to my good friend and colleague Senator Hogg to carry on where I have left off. Once again, this legislation will be rejected by this chamber. It should be rejected and then consigned to the bin where it belongs. Let us get on with the real business of dealing with the real issues that are affecting the lives of Australians today.