Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

before the royal commission this afternoon. The appropriate place for the issues that the member opposite raises to be discussed and dealt with is before the royal commissioner. But I do want to say again in this House that the government does support the professionalism and the impartiality of the Hon. Justice Dyson Heydon. We do support his impartiality and his professionalism. Again I remind members opposite and, indeed, I remind everyone that this is a person who served with distinction and integrity as a judge of the New South Wales Court of Appeal for more than three years; he served with distinction and integrity as a judge of the High Court of Australia for almost a decade. Let me further remind members opposite that the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption is necessary. It is necessary; it was called for, amongst others, by a former national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Ian Cambridge, now a Fair Work Commissioner. It was called for, amongst others, by a serving Labor member of the Victorian parliament. It is important that we get to the bottom of incident after incident which we have seen before this royal commission of union officials who have been looking after themselves at the expense of the workers.

I know there is a bit of embarrassment on the part of members opposite because many of them have benefited from this. What we need now is a situation where unions—

Opposition members interjecting—

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