Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Chief Government Whip for the question. The No. 1 job of any union is to protect its members and to look out for their interests. The reported behaviour from the construction division of the CFMEU is the opposite of this, and the government has zero tolerance for violence or thuggery or intimidation. The best way to deal with this is by putting the union into administration. We made clear that we would support an application from the regulator, the general manager of the Fair Work Commission, and we would intervene in support of an application for the union to be put into administration. We also made clear that, if the union in any way resisted that application, we were willing to legislate. It's clear that the union has not agreed with what was put forward in the Federal Court, and therefore we are legislating.

There are effectively two groups that have been seeking to delay administration. We always presumed there would be the lawyers from the CFMEU. We hadn't suspected there would be the senators of the Liberal and National parties. But we have a situation now where the unity ticket on delaying the union being put into administration—

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