John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Let us understand that the princes who would hold the power if Labor were to win at the end of the year would not be people like Mr and Mrs Doolan of the Lilac City Motor Inn in drought ravaged Goulburn, two struggling small business operators; it would be the likes of Kevin Reynolds. Kevin Reynolds does not muck about. He is very blunt, he is very open, he is very transparent and he cannot wait until Rudd gets there. He is desperate for a change of government and on Saturday he had this to say:

“I live for the day when (the ABCC staff) are all working at Hungry Jack’s or Fast Eddy’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken.” McDonald told The Australian recently.

That is Reynolds’s mate. He continued:

“That is what’s waiting for them. They’re all ex-policemen and they can go and do whatever ex-coppers do. I’d suggest that John Lloyd and his mates—

and Lloyd runs the ABCC—

will be unemployed before I will be”.

That is the mentality—the payback mentality; the mentality that says when Labor wins, the union bosses run the country again. Greg Combet gave us a glimpse, and people like Kevin Reynolds are starting to fill in the blank spaces. What Kevin Reynolds was saying to the construction industry on Saturday, as he looked at the vista from his luxury apartment overlooking the Swan River in Perth, as he took in the vista of all that once more he will survey, in plain language, was: ‘I can’t wait for Labor to be in power again, and once again the unions will be running Australia.’

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