Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I just assumed Senator Cameron ran out of time. But then we do not hear, and we have not heard from Senator Cameron, about the rights of people to go to work, to look at a picket line, to hear from people why they should not cross that picket line, and to then cross the picket line and choose to go to work. Because a picket line, of course, is not legally a physical obstruction. It is a protest. And there is no power in law whatsoever for members of a union, or any assembly of people, to try and physically block access to and egress from part of this country. But Senator Cameron does not care about that.

We do not hear Senator Cameron's concerns about the human rights of people involved in the construction industry who have to have personal security guards at their homes and at their workplaces because of the threats of violence from members associated with the CFMEU. We do not hear about the human rights of those people who want to go about their business—running a small business, or happy employees—who are forced to pay and forced to sign up to CFMEU contracts, because Senator Cameron falls for that great Labor shibboleth: the idea that somehow, by associating with some other people and calling yourself a union, you have more rights than any other assembly of people in this country. Senator Cameron's plaintive cries for human rights, Madam Acting Deputy President, are nothing short of empty screeching for an interest group that funds and owns the Labor Party; the shareholders, the owners and the chief racketeers of the modern-day Labor Party. No-one should ever listen to a member of the party opposite, or indeed to a member of the Greens, talk about human rights until those senators stand in this place and condemn the violence that occurs in Victorian workplaces—violence that has been held by a court to be a criminal contempt by the CFMEU. But no, we do not hear about that—because both the Greens and the Labor Party are in hock to the union movement, who write them cheques. They have no concerns about the human rights of everyday Australians and no concerns about the rights of small-business owners to go about their business, and to be free from threats and violence. They are nothing but empty phrases.