Page 1128 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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(e) the Federal Workplace Minister Senator Michaelia Cash stated on 16 March 2016 that “the ACT Government has effectively outsourced core business to UnionsACT”;
(f) the ACT Master Builders Association (MBA) stated that they are “deeply concerned about the integrity of the ACT Government’s tendering processes following revelations of an MOU signed by the Chief Minister”;
(g) the Canberra Business Chamber said the MOU would lead to additional costs;
(h) the Property Council stated that “commercial-in-confidence tender details can be undermined”;
(i) the MBA stated that the MOU established “a three way process that also involves a union tip off and pay off” and that “their huge wealth and power has been built on forcing Canberra’s construction industry into the woefully anti-competitive pattern agreements that delivered $1.2 million in direct profits to the CFMEU ACT in 2013-2014 alone”;
(j) UnionsACT and the CFMEU have been and continue to use money raised from their activities to conduct paid campaign advertising and other activity on behalf of the Labor Party and its policies to influence elections and maintain mutual power;
(k) worker safety is vitally important, but this MOU does not serve that purpose. Various other local and national legislative protections are in place, as they are in other jurisdictions; and
(l) as The Canberra Times editorial of 17 March 2016 stated “there are reports some organisers have brandished it to force people to sign enterprise bargaining agreements. If true, the allegations are telling evidence of the MOU’s real purpose: entrenchment of union power over employers by state writ. Long-standing it may be, but no amount of deflection or redirection will change that unsavoury fact”; and
(2) calls on the Chief Minister to:
(a) provide copies of all previous versions of this MOU to the Assembly by close of business 7 April 2016;
(b) provide a full copy of all reports or other documentation provided to UnionsACT under this or any previous version of the MOU to the Assembly by close of business 7 April 2016;
(c) provide a copy of all correspondence relating to the drafting, enforcement or operation of the MOU between the ACT Government and UnionsACT to the Assembly by close of business 7 April 2016; and
(d) immediately terminate the operation of this MOU.
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