Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

The reason why no-one would want to interrupt that diatribe is that it proves the point. It proves the very point that we want to make here today—that the so-called royal commission is simply a tool of the Liberal Party of Australia and the hatred they have for trade unionists and the trade union movement. Nobody could have made it more forcefully than Senator Macdonald in what we have just heard from him. Instead of trying to defend former Justice Heydon and the witch-hunt that he now sits over the top of, he runs another attack on the trade union movement and the decent people who represent workers in this country. But we are used to that and we will hear much more of it.

The issue here is whether the royal commissioner, Dyson Heydon, is conflicted in terms of his capacity to preside impartially over this inquiry. What we have seen is a number of issues at that royal commission. The first one being the bias towards witnesses getting access to cross-examination and that not being allowed for union officials who are under attack by Dyson Heydon and the Liberal Party. One issue of bias is the very nature of how that royal commission is being undertaken. It is okay if you are a friend of the Liberal Party, you can get cross-examination, but if you are a union official then no cross-examination from your lawyers—