[Muanet] Exposing the building industry star chamber

[Chris Latham]

[The following speech by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert was presented to the senate on Tuesday November 29]
 
Exposing the building industry star chamber
 
I am moving this motion of disallowance to stop bad regulations implementing bad laws. I do so reluctantly, as I consider a disallowance a blunt instrument and an act of last resort – but I feel it is urgent and essential that I do so in response to recent events in my home state of Western Australia. 

I am doing so because I have been confronted by chilling news of how the Building Industry Taskforce and then the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) have been implementing these regulations since the chamber passed the Building and Construction Industry Improvement (BCII) Act. 

It is not a pretty story, and it is not the kind of tale you expect to hear emerging within Australia. 
Now when this legislation passed through this chamber just a couple of months ago I spoke up against its passing into law, and I raised my concern that these laws would remove the basic civil and democratic rights of workers, that they would be denied the right to silence. I raised my concern that the ABCC was being given what were clearly coercive powers. 

Well it gives me absolutely no pleasure to say I told you so. 

I have been hearing some very scary stories of workers families being intimidated by burly inspectors, who appear to have waited until a worker has set off to work to serve his wife or partner with a notice – pointing out in a heavy-handed manner that they are liable to a large fine or a jail term if they don’t cooperate fully.
 
I’ve heard stories of apprentices and migrant workers (for whom English is a second language) being picked on, intimidated and tricked into answering questions without being informed of their legal rights. 

I’ve heard about workers being invited to have an informal conversation by an ABCC inspector, only to learn that the discussion has been recorded without their knowledge or consent.
 
I’ve heard stories about workers being separated from their counsel in ABCC hearings, being seated tightly between two burly inspectors, and being badgered into answering questions. About their counsel being ignored and denied the opportunity to intervene in heavy-handed and inappropriate line of questioning. I’ve heard about workers and their counsel being denied the right to particulars that detail the matter under investigation, and of counsel being man-handled by ABCC inspectors. 

What I’ve heard are reports about a hearing process that amounts for all intensive purposes to being a “star chamber” in which the Deputy Commissioner, sitting beneath a Commonwealth coat of arms, acts in a imperious manner claiming the regulations give him the right to determine who ca n or cannot represent a worker and how they fulfill their moral, ethical and legal obligations. 
 
One of the worrying things about the Building and Construction Industry ‘Improvement’ Act and its regulations is the manner in which is has been made retrospective. 

This means that the ordinary Australian workers now fronting this star chamber with no right to silence and the threat of six months jail – are being pursued and threatened with prosecution for taking part in or possibly knowing of actions that were not illegal at the time they purportedly occurred. 

Let me run that by you again – no right of silence, limited access to bona fide legal representation and the threat of six months jail for being involved in or possibly having knowledge of industrial actions that were not illegal at the time they are said to have occurred. 
 
For more of the speech visit http://www.rachelsiewert.org.au/500_parliament_sub.php?deptItemID=28 <http://www.rachelsiewert.org.au/500_parliament_sub.php?deptItemID=28> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.murdoch.edu.au/pipermail/muanet/attachments/20051202/0e9ac78a/attachment.html