Stewart McArthur (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My colleague is very aware of that too. He has been subjected to this. To ensure an elected Kevin Rudd government does what the union tells it, they have replaced current ALP MPs with union bosses, without a preselection, such as Greg Combet in the electorate of Charlton and ACTU Assistant Secretary Richard Marles, who has moved from Melbourne to Geelong to overthrow Gavan O’Connor in Corio, because Gavan O’Connor is an independent, and the hard right wing have stacked the branches in Corio. So now we have Richard Marles in Geelong. We will just see how he gets on, whether he gets up in Corio. I am not sure whether the member for Batman will be down there giving him a hand—he might; we don’t know.

AWU boss, Bill Shorten, has been imposed on Maribyrnong. There was no preselection there; he just moved in and took it over. Dougie Cameron is going into the Senate. He is certainly a free trader if ever I met one. Even in my electorate of Corangamite, the faceless union bosses on the ALP selection panel ratted on Councillor Peter McMullan, my opponent, and preselected an out-of-towner, a Ballarat based union organiser who is not even committed to the region. He is coming down to have a go at Corangamite. He does not live in the area. He has his union mates tracking around Corangamite trying to win the vote, and we will see how he gets on.

If he is elected to office, Kevin Rudd will be forced to keep his promise to hand over power to the union movement because the unions will hold most of the seats in the Labor caucus. The unions are desperate to get their patsy, Kevin Rudd, elected, and they are happy to tell the people.

We know Dean Mighell, the Electrical Trades Union guy—he is a good sort of fellow. He said it was ‘going to be fun’ coercing employers under Labor’s industrial relations policies. Finally, of course, the Western Australian CFMEU boss, Kevin Reynolds, told the Australian in May 2007:

We’re going to put our shoulder to the wheel to assist the campaign to unseat the Howard Government and then we’re going to have the biggest celebration that we can have on the night he was defeated ...

He is very keen to get into the Labor Party. We know what his position is. Kevin Reynolds’s mate and deputy Western Australian CFMEU leader, Joe McDonald, has explained why the militant unions will be happy to see Labor elected, because Labor will abolish the ABCC for them. He said:

I live for the day when [the ABCC staff] are all working at Hungry Jack’s, Fast Eddy’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken. 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 will be unemployed before I will be.

That was sourced from the Australian on 26 May 2007. That is what the real attitude of the Labor Party is to the ABCC.

Strikes in Australia are at their lowest level since 1913 as a result of the Howard government’s industrial relations reforms and the introduction of the ABCC. Illegal and unsafe practices on our building sites have been challenged, and the unions do not like it, as we see in Victoria. The CFMEU are so committed to the election that they have handed over $6.3 million of their members’ subscriptions to the ALP over the life of the Howard government, including $1 million paid by the Victorian CFMEU. The opposition leader pulled a media stunt to expel Dean Mighell from the ALP but has been weak in not forcing Joe McDonald out for his outrageous behaviour in Western Australia.

I support the thrust of the bill. I support the thrust of my comments. I look forward to the member for Batman’s response. I put on the record what the ALP, if they were ever elected to government, would do with the building commission. It is their intent to restore union power on building sites. We know that the building sites are now safer and more productive. We know that in Victoria they are now working well. (Time expired)

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