CANBERRA, Nov 26 AAP – Labor is fighting tooth and nail against workplace legislation the Morrison government hopes to pass in the final sitting fortnight for the parliamentary year.
Opposition Senator Tim Ayres is the latest to seize on a money laundering scandal engulfing the Westpac board, accusing the government
of unfairly targeting trade unions and their officials.Senator Ayres said the proposed “ensuring integrity” laws would hold unions to a standard not imposed on the corporate sector.“This is a government that only knows one speed when it comes to Australian workplaces, that’s hopping into workers and getting stuck into trade unions,” the former union boss told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.“It’s absolute hypocrisy and it just demonstrates that the Morrison government is completely out of touch with what ordinary Australians want and only understands beating up unions and beating up on Australian workers.”But, reinforcing comments made by the prime minister on Monday, Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker sought to reassure about so-called corporate equivalence.Senator Stoker said company directors have the book thrown at them when they break the law, and may face criminal penalties for misconduct.“When we have unions, whose officers have been called recidivists multiple times by Federal Circuit Court and Federal Court judges, not being held to that standard then we’ve got an imbalance that needs to be corrected,” she said.Pauline Hanson, whose One Nation party controls two crucial votes in the Senate, says she will not be rushed into making a final decision on the legislation.Union officials have vowed to stay at parliament for as long as it takes to convince her and and fellow crossbencher Jacqui Lambie to block its passage.The Australian Council of Trade Unions has characterised the bill as a “sledgehammer”, while opposition senator Penny Wong compared it to the Howard government’s controversial WorkChoices industrial relations reforms.“This is an ideological attack on working people,” she told Sky News.“There are already ways in which these matters can be dealt with.“This is about undermining and weakening the capacity of trade unions to advocate on behalf of their members.”
