The government is risking its investment in nation building if it hands control of building sites to “militant building unions”, Master Builders Australia (MBA) today warns.
“The heart and soul of the stimulus package and nation building plan will be put at risk if the government’s plans for a powerless building and construction industry watchdog go ahead,” Mr Wilhelm Harnisch, CEO of MBA, said.
The industry group has put forward a submission to the senate committee examining the legislation that is proposed to replace the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
The building unions are letting contractors know that they intend exert their influence once the new, weaker watchdog comes into being on 1 February 2010. The raft of industry specific laws that now deter unlawful conduct will be repealed if the Bill before Parliament is passed.
“The unions are rightly confident that the agency to replace the ABCC will be ineffective because it will have no industry specific laws to enforce. It does not deliver the tough cop on the beat as promised by the government; it will be a special body in name only with significantly reduced powers,” Harnisch said.
These reductions include a two-thirds decrease in the maximum level of fines, reduction in the range of industrial action that is unlawful, a lifting of the ban on applying “undue pressure” to make, vary or terminate agreements, and the right to intervene in industrial relations cases has been abolished.
“The most controversial weakening of the powers is the introduction of new legislative provisions where the compulsory examination powers can be “switched off” in the case where the unions can demonstrate a good track record of lawful behaviour. This is unnecessary because the building unions should have nothing to fear if they behave within the law,” Harnisch said.
MBA is urging the government to re-think the replacement Bill and to retain the current industry specific laws.
Harnisch said: “Contractors are very concerned that the new legislation will become the Trojan horse for building unions to take their damaging practices of coercion and intimidation back on to building sites around Australia and threaten the government’s nation building economic recovery strategy.”
