The Senate has narrowly voted down for a second time a bill that would impose greater oversight on union officials, potentially setting up a double dissolution trigger for the government.
The fair work (registered organisations) amendment bill was rejected for the second time late on Monday night after the independent senators Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus, and the Motoring Enthusiast party senator, Ricky Muir, sided with Labor and the Greens in blocking the amendments. The final vote was 33 for, 34 against.
If passed, the bill would have set up a new registered organisations commission, a body tasked with imposing tougher penalties on dodgy union officials by bringing their reporting and transparency obligations in line with company directors. That would have meant that union officials who had breached their duties could face stronger civil and criminal penalties.
Rejecting the bill was “bizarre and illogical”, the employment minister, Eric Abetz, said on Tuesday.
“It is regrettable that the hundreds of thousands of union members who pay union dues will not have the peace of mind that their registered organisations are free of the kinds of rorts, rackets and ripoffs that have been shown to be systemic in some trade unions,” he said.
“Why should a corrupt union official who has ripped off hundreds of thousands of dollars from a union only be liable for a fine of $10,800 when, for the same corrupt conduct, a company director would be liable for five years’ imprisonment or a fine of $360,000?”
The bill was knocked back by the Senate for the first time in March.
The government’s push to highlight union corruption suffered a setback after revelations that the head of its royal commission into trade union corruption, Dyson Heydon, was billed to speak at a Liberal party fundraiser.
Labor said the revelation proved the royal commission was being used for political purposes. “That is what this government are about; they are about a naked attack on their political opponents,” Labor’s Doug Cameron told the Senate on Monday night.
“They use a royal commission and put their mate in as royal commissioner. Their mates go down and sit in that commission, attacking the leader of the opposition and attacking trade unionists on the floor of the royal commission.
“This is the same royal commissioner who accepted an invitation to go to a Liberal party fundraiser. That is the type of behaviour that this government undertakes, and this legislation is part of that general attack on workers’ rights to bargain in this country.”
Heydon on Monday admitted that he had “overlooked” the link between the Sir Garfield Barwick address and the Liberal party. The Australian Council of Trade Unions has until Thursday to decide whether it will seek legal recourse to have Heydon disqualified as royal commissioner.
The rejection of the registered organisations bill came on the same day that the government had another industrial relations bill defeated in the Senate.
The bill to reinstate the Howard-era Australian Building and Construction Commission was defeated on Monday morning because of a tied vote, which failed to give supporters of the bill a majority in the Senate.
Abetz has vowed to continue negotiations with the crossbench to see a new form of the bill introduced at a later date and his cabinet colleagues have defended the government’s record in getting legislation passed.
“We have got some good runs on the board when it comes to getting through the Senate but obviously last night we saw an important bill defeated in the Senate,” the assistant treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, told ABC TV. “But that doesn’t mean it’s bad policy, it’s good policy.”
