Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (4:11 PM) —I commend Senator Murray and the Australian Democrats for what could only be described as a constructive approach to the extensive findings. I do not think that Senator Murray or I could possibly pretend to have had the time to have devoured them in any sort of detail. As I see it, a part of my role in the ministry—as I have responsibility for the financial services sector—is having responsibility for building Australia as a financial centre. I regard particularly the central business district construction industry as a vital part of that infrastructure for making Australia a great financial centre. I do not think that many people would draw that analogy but, having come out of the central city property industry and now having responsibility for making sure we have vibrant commercial centres in Australia, not just in Sydney, I have a close interest. I have followed the Cole Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry in a similar way, I suspect, to Senator Murray—that is, looking at it from the outside until two days ago, when the significant body of work produced by the royal commission landed on the tables of the two houses of our parliament.

By way of contrast, the Labor Party has, unfortunately, gone into what could only be called denial. I will not try to score political points, because I think the approach taken by Senator Murray is the approach the whole parliament should take. It should try to take away the political game playing from around this issue and look at the serious problems that are addressed by the royal commission.

At the same time, the Econtech organisation has produced a report which reinforces a suspicion I had about the damage that can be done by a construction industry which, on the face of it, has some endemic corruption flowing through it and is involved in `racketeering', to use Senator Murray's term. It has the effect of ensuring that costs in Australia are much higher than they need be. If you look at the Econtech report, it reaches the conclusion that, with an efficient building industry, Australia could have a consumer price index that is one per cent lower, an annual economic welfare gain of $2.3 billion, a gross domestic product lift of 1.1 per cent, rises in labour productivity of 10 per cent and a productivity gap of 50 per cent between the construction industries in North America and Australia. Those figures are deeply alarming.

The potential of having a good building industry in Australia is phenomenal gains for everyone in Australia. We should have an efficient, internationally competitive nation which will attract the best and brightest from around the world. Let us extend the economic benefits of a good building industry to—and Senator Carr has reminded me of this by walking into this chamber—the tertiary education sector. This is quite a serious point. If you think about it, if you want an efficient economy which maximises opportunities for people throughout the economy—and the people who miss out through inefficiency are, generally speaking, the lowest paid, those who struggle most to get into the work force—you need a building industry which creates some of the biggest infrastructure in the nation. The big central city buildings are the big-ticket items in a nation the size of Australia; in fact, in any sized nation. You cannot afford to have a 50 per cent productivity gap with the United States. It is absurd. We are competing head to head with the United States of America for jobs and for the best and brightest minds in the world, yet we are accepting a 50 per cent productivity gap between us and a nation which has great similarities in terms of demographics, geography, economy, federal system of government, and the aspirations of many of our people in many ways. We cannot accept that.

I reinforce the point that the approach that Senator Murray has just outlined is the sort of approach that the parliament needs to take. It is the approach that the government needs to take to looking at how we develop this. I note, reading a press release from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry which has just come to hand, that Mr Hendy, the chief executive of that organisation, has taken a similar approach to Senator Murray's, saying that the recommendations should be examined urgently and on their merits.

I was making the analogy to the tertiary education sector. You cannot have a strong economy without an effective and efficient building industry. You want to ensure best use of the limited resources available to any sector. Let us choose the tertiary education system. You do not want the limited resources that are going into the tertiary education system in Australia—that Senator Kim Carr complains about virtually every day—to be squandered on buildings that are far more expensive than they need to be. Let us take a hypothetical example: if you want to build a $5 million research centre on a campus somewhere in Australia, why would you want to pay $500,000 too much for it when you know that you could do so much better with that extra $500,000? The report says that the endemic corruption in this industry is ensuring that we are wasting those scarce resources on the rorts and the criminal activities and corruption that is dragging the whole of Australia down. It is very important that we take away the overblown political rhetoric from both sides of the debate. I am sorry if I fall into the trap of being overblown and political in my rhetoric about this, but we do need to think of the core importance—

Senator Carr —One death per week on a building site! What are you saying about that?

Senator IAN CAMPBELL —Senator Carr interjects on the issue of workplace safety. It is an absolutely pivotal issue, which in fact the royal commission looked at directly. One of the recommendations relates specifically to occupational health and safety, and the royal commission recommends the establishment of a commissioner of health and safety in the building and construction industry to monitor occupational health and safety at all projects on which the Commonwealth is the client. That would relate specifically to tertiary education institutions—where you would have a direct interest, of course.

It also makes a recommendation which is equally important, which is to say, `Let's stop using occupational health and safety issues as trojan horses for other union issues and, often, political issues'—they are used as tools for creating access and a range of other industrial issues—`because it diminishes the important focus on occupational health and safety.' If you have a bunch of union people running around using occupational health and safety as a trojan horse for political or other industrial agendas, of course you are diminishing the currency of those very issues. We should address those. We should try to put aside our natural political divisions over these issues, because they will drag down the whole of the country.

In Western Australia—the state that Senator Murray and I come from—the CFMEU is the worst in the nation. I agree with Senator Murray that there is clear blame on both sides of the argument here. You do not get what has occurred in the Western Australian building and construction industry unless the employers get into bed with the unions. There is no doubt that in Western Australia many of them have. They will explain to you: `We have no choice. We have to get the buildings done on time. If we don't get the sites working, the banks will close us down.' They are things that are addressed by the royal commission as well. But it does need a change of culture. It needs a change in behaviour by unions, it needs a change in behaviour by the construction firms themselves, and it needs a change in behaviour by the law enforcers. Clearly the royal commission has made some recommendations to the government which will need to be looked at very closely, because none of us can afford to allow the existing situation to continue. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.