Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

The government is on the side of honest trade-union members who have been let down by dodgy union bosses. We got an interjection from the other side saying that nobody seems to know what a royal commission would do. Funny, that. Your former Labor Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, knew exactly what it would do. Former AMWU official Ian Cambridge, who is now a Fair Work Commissioner, knows exactly what a royal commission would do. Kathy Jackson, the former secretary of the Health Services Union, knows exactly what a royal commission would do—and so the list goes on. Steven Purvinas of the engineers union knows exactly what a royal commission would do. The CEPU person that blew the whistle knows what a royal commission would do. But those over there who have been engaged in the union movement will not see and attend to that which needs to be cut out of the union movement to protect those honest union members who want to see the reputation of the trade union movement flourish and not diminished by the sorts of rackets the Labor Party— (Time expired)