Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, the member for Newcastle has just highlighted the exact problem we face in this country today, and that is that the CFMEU and the Labor Party are one and the same. There was a time when the Labor Party supported free trade. They were trying to settle free trade agreements with China, but the CFMEU yanked the chain. They brought the Leader of the Opposition back into the tent and they said 'Listen, there are no more donations. There are no more membership lists. There's no more stacking of the Victorian ALP. You'll do as you're told, and you'll oppose the China free trade agreement.' And because the Leader of the Opposition is so weak, so unfit to be Prime Minister of Australia, he danced to the tune of the inheritor of the BLF, the Builders Labourers Federation—that is, the CFMEU's antecedent was the BLF. What we see today is the CFMEU writing the policies of the Labor Party on free trade, on exports, on trying to make our country a better place with more growth and more jobs. What the Labor Party needs to do is listen to people like Bob Hawke—even Daniel Andrews from the Socialist Left supports the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement; Jay Weatherill, another socialist, from my own state supports the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement—and get on board with Australian jobs and growing the economy.

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