Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (04:57): I was listening to the Leader of the House earlier this evening when he did not know what he was doing in terms of the management of the house and he moved an entirely new motion. But he started with the words ‘the rivers of gold’ –
Anthony Carbines: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I know there are several former leaders of the opposition in the house. I just wonder where the current Leader of the Opposition is –
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point of order is?
Anthony Carbines: Where the current member for Kew is. Where is she? Where is she hiding?
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leader of the House, resume your seat. It is late. Frivolous points of order are annoying.
Danny O’BRIEN: Technically, it is not late; it is early, Deputy Speaker. But obviously the Leader of the House is embarrassed to hear about what his own mistake was earlier when he started a speech talking about rivers of gold. I thought that obviously he was talking about this legislation allowing that CFMEU river of gold to continue to funnel its way to his party, because that is what this legislation is all about tonight. The government is rigging the system again.
Let us all be aware there is only one reason we are here in the first place. It is because this mob stuffed up the legislation. This mob stuffed up the legislation in the first place, and now we come back. We have had since 15 April, and – what is it? – it is 5 June now. The government could not get its act together through whatever that is – that is six weeks – and then suddenly says, ‘We’ve got to rush this through within a day or two,’ 119 pages of legislation. To have the Premier standing there telling us about the dodgy deals that the Liberal Party was running at the last minute – we were being told by the Premier’s office just a few hours before that they could do a deal on increased caps. Just a few hours before, and then ‘No. Oh, sorry’ – well, not even a sorry, actually – ‘did we say that last night? Actually, no. We’ve done a deal with our mates the Greens up there.’ They have done a deal so that those rivers of union gold can just keep on flowing to that one and that one and that one and that one, because they are all very concerned.
One of them over there has said ‘It feels like end of days,’ and they are desperate to do whatever they possibly can. This is a government now standing up and trying to say this is about free and fair elections. Well, if it was free and fair, why wouldn’t you knock out the affiliation fees? Victorians ask us all the time ‘So hang on, you can only get $5000 from the corporates?’ and I say, ‘No, we can only get $5000 from you or BHP Billiton or whoever.’ That is the minimum. And yet the rivers of gold from the union movement keep flowing to all of you. Hands up those in the Parliament who are not members of a union. Everyone on that side, everyone! Every single one of them.
Members interjecting.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: When the house comes to order, I encourage the Leader of the Nationals not to incite members.
Danny O’BRIEN: I am sure that that ruling applies to all of those as well. This is the point of the dishonesty of this government. Mark our words – not our words, but the other plaintiffs’ – we will see this back again because the government keeps messing this up.
On the legislation, there are five amendments that are before us. Can I request that the first four be put together and that the fifth be put as a separate amendment, and we will vote on them accordingly? This legislation sets up a particular advantage to the Labor government – a Labor government that is desperate to hold on to power. These amendments will do nothing to change that.