Tuesday, 20 February 2024

Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (19:08): (714) My adjournment matter is to the minister for employment and industrial relations, and it relates to an article that came out titled ‘Labourers on 36-hour week to earn $120,000 under proposed CFMEU pay deal’. The action that I seek is very simple from the minister: do not sign it.

I think about all the people in my electorate of Western Victoria who work very hard for their money. When we think about teachers, for example, the top pay for a teacher in the public or the Catholic system is not $120,000. Nurses working more than 36 hours a week do not earn that much. Tradies, many of them small business owners themselves, do not even earn this much. So this deal that the CFMEU is trying to tie up with the government is actually completely wrong and totally immoral because it is completely inflated. To quote from the article:

Labourers and junior stop-sign holders working 36-hour weeks on construction sites will soon earn $120,000 a year under a new union pay deal.

That is just for a basic 36-hour week – there is more if you have extra hours, overtime and that sort of thing – and that also includes a $260 travel allowance. Now, I can tell you no teacher gets that. And this is on all Big Build sites and those sorts of things, so it is quite a big concern what is actually going on there. This is in the same sentence as we talk about cost overruns on major projects, and it has been reported recently that there was $74 million on cost overruns in just a recent project that has been completed in the works by the government. Now, who pays for that? It is the Victorian taxpayer that pays for that.

I thought maybe I would help the government, because they need it, and I went online and had a look at some quotes for some stop-go machines just to help out the government a bit. There is one quote for $34,995 – a 12- to 14-week wait, mind you – and there is another quote I have got here for $13,200; that wait is only four to six weeks. So maybe the government could consider putting money into that and redeploying these stop-go workers into other more productive areas. It might actually save the taxpayers some money, but I guess the government does not really care about that when they are looking after their union mates.