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

I can understand why the member for Watson would be ashamed of the way in which the Leader of the Opposition has been so careless of the rule of law that not only did he choose Cesar Melhem to succeed him in the AWU; he supported him going into the Victorian parliament and then hand-picked Kimberley Kitching into the Senate, who was recommended for investigation for prosecution by the DPP for fraudulently filling in other people's right-of-entry forms, in defiance of safety conditions. And the Leader of the Opposition has not once stated how he satisfied himself that those findings by the Heydon royal commission were wrong. He has not been able to satisfy himself of that; he does not care. He does not care about the two million members of trade unions. He does not care about the lawlessness in the construction sector.

We do. We have stood up for those members. We have stood up for the workers in the construction sector. We are restoring the rule of law, just like we protected tens of thousands of owner-drivers from the Transport Workers Union when we abolished the RSRT, just like we protected 60,000 volunteer firefighters from a takeover from another militant union. The Labor Party of today is a wholly owned subsidiary of militant trade unions. The only parties that stand for their members are the coalition.

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