Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business
Acting Attorney-General
Acting Minister for Industrial Relations
Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate
Senator The Hon. Michaelia Cash

The Morrison Government has cleared the way for individual parts of amalgamated registered organisations – unions or employer organisations – to begin the process of breaking away from their larger organisations.

Regulations detailing the demerger process, including the rules for conducting ballots of members, were made by the Governor-General yesterday and take effect from tomorrow.

The regulations were the final hurdle that needed to be cleared in order to give effect to the demerger legislation passed by Parliament late last year.

“It means that decent, hard-working parts of an amalgamated union or employer body that are dissatisfied with being part of a broader organisation now have greater capacity to free themselves from it, if that is what their members genuinely want,” Acting Minister for Industrial Relations, Senator Michaelia Cash, said.

“This exact situation currently exists with the mining and energy division of the CFMMEU, which no longer believes the interests of its members are being well served by its continued association with the likes of the union’s lawless construction division.

“To its credit, Labor supported this legislation which will enable the CFMMEU’s mining and energy division, as well as other parts of amalgamated unions and employer organisations, to take control of their own destiny if that is what their members so choose.”

Previously, registered organisations that had been amalgamated for more than five years were prevented by law from demerging, no matter how bad internal relationships had become, or how poorly other divisions were behaving or what their members wanted.

The regulations were the outcome of consultation with union and employer representatives prior to being made. Read the regulations