Page 1140 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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Part 4.2 of the MOU covers prequalification and clearly states that prior to any decision being made by the government on a prequalification certain conditions need to be met. The agreement states at 4.2(b):
Prior to any decisions on pre-qualification being made:
(i) A list of applicants for prequalification will be provided to UnionsACT and/or the relevant union as identified by UnionsACT;
(ii) Each relevant union has no more than 10 working days from the receipt of a list … to advise government of its views as to whether or not the applicant meets its employee and industrial relations obligations
If the union requests a copy of the ethical suppliers declaration and other documents, it is privy to it. The agreement continues in part 4.3 on contract execution. It again raises the issue that before any contract is issued, UnionsACT or the relevant union are given 10 days to offer feedback and respond. Ten days, and it is done by the union movement. It is not done by procurement ACT, whose ultimate job is to check, double-check and ensure that the people we are giving work to are fair and honest. Instead that is delegated out to the union movement.
Those two sections of the agreement alone highlight that the union movement has an ultimate veto power over any government procurement decision or prequalification application whenever a business makes a bid to do work for this territory. This is ultimately a clearly premeditated corruption of process designed to benefit the union movement and, through that, prop up what is seemingly a dishonest government.
The Chief Minister stood here just moments ago stating that this is about worker safety, but it goes far beyond pure work health and safety issues. He said we do not want people dying on our construction sites. I come from the construction industry; I have a proud history in that space. I can say that any death in any workplace is a tragedy, but to hold up the tragic losses we have had in the ACT in past years as a reason to stand by this agreement, which is a complete corruption of process, is dishonest to yourselves, it is dishonest to the families of the victims and it is dishonest to the entire ACT community.
I can stand here proudly having worked in my family’s business that had 20 years operating in the construction industry in this city with over 2,000 jobs completed in this city and not a single death on our worksites and not a single signature on a union enterprise agreement. Union agreements do not make safe workplaces; they are merely a guise for influence and corruption to prevail in our construction industry.
As concerning and damning as the revelations of the MOU are, what people are grappling with is: in practice, what does this agreement mean between the unions and the government when it comes to the procurement of goods and services in this city? It is two-pronged. On the procurement side, the government call for a tender. They invite everyone in a competitive marketplace to put their best foot forward. That is assessed and whoever might be the frontrunner is then referred to the unions. If they are friendly with the unions or the unions have a good relationship with that business,
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