SUBJECTS: ABCC, Registered Organisations Bill. 

GILBERT: The Prime Minister live from Lima at the end of that APEC Summit. Historic as he says, the final international commitment for President Barack Obama. With me now Michelle Rowland, Labor frontbencher. Quickly for some reaction our time has been made more brief because of that news conference Michelle Rowland, but your thoughts on Mr Turnbull’s push for that building watchdog. They want it done by the end of next week, and reinforced he says by this report today that more than $100 billion worth of projects have been disrupted by construction union lawlessness, that report the front page of The Australian today.

MICHELLE ROWLAND, SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Kieran this is the reason why Malcolm Turnbull put us through the longest campaign in living memory, and here we are in the death rattles of the parliamentary session for this year. We still don’t know whether or not he has the numbers for this, although I see some reports indicating virtually champagne corks are popping as we speak. But Labor has proposed some very sensible amendments to the Registered Organisations Bill, and we’ve indicated that with the passage of those amendments we would be prepared to support it. The evidence is in on the ABCC. We haven’t seen the intended results that the government said was going to happen before and after when it was last brought in, and then dismantled. And now we have simply adding up the cost of different construction projects and passing that off as evidence. This is for the Senators to decide Kieran and I trust in their judgement on this point, but we’ll have to wait and see.

GILBERT: And finally you don’t look like you’re, you don’t fear that you’re once again just being led around by the CFMEU on this?

ROWLAND: Kieran we have taken a consistent approach to this matter, it’s been evidence-based, and if the Senators want to take note of that evidence good on them.

ENDS