Back To Work
Criminal convictions are treated differently in the corporate and union worlds. And it’s not the corporate bosses who receive special privileges. By James Mathias.
When a company director is convicted of corruption or dereliction, three sanctions can apply: incarceration, a fine or banishment from directorships.
When the equivalent from a union is similarly convicted, only the first two sanctions apply. Should he (it’s always a he) be found guilty of assault, trespass or theft of members’ funds (all of which are despairingly common convictions among union officials in Australia) and avoids a holiday at the governor’s expense (again, despairingly common) he can return straight to work from the courthouse to do it all again. That he often does is the most despairing fact of all.
This anomaly would have been eradicated by the Government’s Ensuring Integrity Bill this week. But Senators Lambie and Hanson scotched that, locking the vote in the Senate on Thursday at 34-34.
The reasons they gave suggest they did not actually understand the Bill on which they voted.
On Wednesday evening, Hanson rose in the Senate to deliver a wide-ranging speech about the Bill. Not all of it was directly relevant.
She said “ensuring integrity” for registered organisations should also include multinational tax avoidance; Australian jobs were being sold out by free trade deals with Indonesia, Hong Kong and Peru; the Fair Work Act was too complex; and, finally, Westpac was bad.
She also disclosed that she had had “very worthwhile discussions” with 10 unions, including the CFMMEU and AWU, in the lead up to voting against the legislation.
In a press conference after voting down the bill, Senator Hanson was asked when she had reached her decision about the Bill. “It’s basically come down to this week… And especially when it came out about Westpac.”
If this is the case – that the Bill needed to be stopped because of the accusations against Westpac – then Hanson didn’t understand the legislation on which she was voting.
The Ensuring Integrity Bill seeks to make union officials accountable under provisions similar to those governing company directors in the Corporations Act. Currently they are none.
Under the Corporations Act a person is automatically disqualified from managing corporations if he or she is convicted of a number of offences.
Specifically under section 206B of the Corporations Act a person becomes disqualified from managing corporations if he or she is:
· Convicted of an offence under the Corporations Act punishable by a period of more than 12 months imprisonment;
· Convicted of an offence involving dishonesty punishable by at least 3 years imprisonment
· Convicted of an offence against the law of a foreign country punishable by a period of more than 12 months imprisonment; or
· Convicted on indictment of any offence that impacts the corporation.
If Senator Hanson has an issue with the Corporations Act, that is a very different issue. But to say similar sanctions should not apply to union officials because of Westpac’s failings is nonsense.
The special rights and privileges extended to unionists, including tax exemptions and the right to trespass on private land, should come with accountabilities that do not currently exist.
In a further twist, Senator Hanson was quoted in The Australian saying she had voted against the bill because of the “unfettered powers” it gave to administrators appointed to a union.
The legislation would empower the Federal Court and Fair Work Commission to place an organisation into administration when its officers have been found by a court to have misappropriated funds, repeatedly broken the law, breached their duties or otherwise ceased to function effectively.
This is not an arbitrary power, as Senator Hanson suggested.
Senator Lambie’s position on the Bill is even more bizarre. She had consistently said she would support the legislation if John Setka was still the secretary of the Victorian division of the CFMMEU. Setka still holds that position but Lambie’s position has changed. She now opposes the Bill.
As I recently told the Senate Committee Inquiry into this legislation: “The first principle of public policy is to always begin with one question, and that is what is the issue we seek to solve with Legislation? From the outset, I would simply propose that in the case of the Ensuring Integrity legislation the issue the community seek to solve is the ongoing, undeniable truth of lawlessness of officials of some registered organisations in this country.”
Senators Hanson and Lambie should stop playing politics on this vitally important issue.