Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Here on the last day of the parliament in 2016 the government is delivering on its national economic plan. We took our plan to the Australian people, to the election, and we won. Central to our plan was restoring the rule of law in the building and construction sector—eight per cent of GDP, 1 million Australians working in it, 300,000 small businesses—that has been terrorised by a lawless union defying the courts and defying the fines, which had been cut by two-thirds by the Leader of the Opposition when he was the employment minister. The Leader of the Opposition, when he was the employment minister in the Gillard government, rolled out the red carpet for the CFMEU—not like Bob Hawke, who stood up to the lawless elements of the building industry and deregistered the BLF. The Leader of the Opposition defends the CFMEU just like he defends Craig Thomson, Kathy Jackson and Cesar Melhem, his hand-picked successor. This is a man who has hand-picked two Labor figures—one, Cesar Melhem, who is being investigated for corruption right now and who has gone into the Victorian parliament—

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