John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I could take the interjection of Senator Collins and we could go down the union road. Perhaps we might talk about the Health Services Union? We might get onto the Australian Workers Union. I was a member of the Australian Workers Union for one year. I was a member for one year, in January 1978, when I was shearing at Carriewerloo Station out from Port Augusta, where they made the film Sunday Too Far Away. It was just after the state election and the then Premier Don Dunstan said, 'Unionism is not compulsory.' The rep walked into the shed and he said, 'You have a ticket?' I said, 'No'. He said, 'Do you want me to take it out of your wages, or will we take it off the boss?'

I said, 'I don't want one'. He said, 'These are your options: you buy a ticket or you leave the shed.' That was the option after the '77 drought. This is how the thuggery of the unions works. And to think that when I gave them whatever the amount of money was in those days—the only time they ever got it off me, I can tell you—I wondered what happened to that money. We could ask questions about what happened to the AWU money; there is a lot of stuff out in the media now. But let's get back to the argument about small business.