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

back strain research, forum tickets and conference sponsorships. None of these benefits were provided. ACI Operations, another example of big business, paid the AWU in Victoria half a million dollars while workers were laid off at the Spotswood glass manufacturing plant. The AWU invoiced the payments as paid education leave, but the payments were used to pay off a union loan on its premises. And what about Chiquita Mushrooms? That is a very famous one. It paid the AWU $24,000. Again, the AWU did not trouble their members with any details of these payments from big business. What was that invoiced as? Again, paid education leave. You have to hand it to the AWU—they are absolutely committed to education, at least on all those dodgy invoices. What about Unibilt, who made a campaign donation of $32,000 to the member for Maribyrnong in 2007, when he was running for parliament, at the same time as the company was negotiating an enterprise agreement with the union of which he was the national secretary?

We are not going to take lectures from the Labor Party about dealings with big business. They say they are proud of the Leader of the Opposition's record as a union leader. It is one secret payment after another. If he was so proud of those payments, why doesn't he tell the world? Why doesn't he tell us what they were really for? We know they were not for the matters set out on the invoices. Let him tell us the story. He has a great barrister there, the member for Isaacs. He says he is especially proud of the Leader of the Opposition. He could get him to make a case, powerful advocate that he is. He could sell anything. We do not care who presents the facts, but it is about time that Labor told the truth about these secret payments from big business. (Time expired)

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