Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

including donations from trade unions where the workers' wages were garnished by trade unions and union organisers who were involved in illegal criminal activity. And we have not seen any refunds, for example, from the Labor Party to those unions where some of the union funds raised had been inappropriately used.

To go to some of the interjections made by shadow ministers Leigh and Albanese at the table, last time I checked tobacco was still a legal product. The Labor Party need to remember the actual lay of the land. The last time I checked legal products were still run by companies operating in a legal way as opposed to some of the donations that have been received by the Australian Labor Party from unions, where corrupt union organisers have overseen the use of the wages, often, of people from some of the most disadvantaged positions in our society. I remind the Labor Party of that background before they get too sanctimonious, as they so frequently do—remembering some of the sanctimony we have already seen from Labor in relation to some other matters that have come before the House. Nevertheless, I take this opportunity to remind the Labor Party of that, that they are not quite as polished as they like to think nor as pure as they like to think. On that basis, I commend these bills to the House.

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