Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Polley can laugh at the corrupting payments, but these were some workers who seriously got sold out. Mr Shorten, in his role as a union leader, when he was selling out workers, did it for a pretty low price, it must be said. It did not take much in terms of payments to Bill Shorten's union to get him to wipe off hundreds of millions of dollars, potentially, in wages for the workers that he claimed to represent. I have laid out some of the examples of where large unions have left workers much worse off—not just lower penalty rates but worse off overall. If you are looking for examples of the motivation for that, let us look at Mr Shorten and his union.

Thiess John Holland paid AWU Victoria $300,000 plus GST whilst they built the EastLink freeway extension. The AWU issued false invoices to disguise the payments as training, back-strain research and AWU magazine advertisements. The false invoices—there is the guilty mind right there. They know these payments are dodgy. They know that, if their members knew about them, they would think they were dodgy. They are corrupting benefits, yet they were happy to accept them, but they certainly were not going to be transparent about them. They had to hide them because they knew—if you were to put it to the workers, 'Yes, we've been paid 300 grand, and, by the way, we've taken away some of your wages and conditions,' what do you think a worker would think? They would probably think that was corrupt, and they would be right.

ACI Operations paid AWU Victoria $500,000 while they laid off workers at their Spotswood glass-manufacturing factory. The AWU invoiced the payments as 'paid education leave'—again false; a guilty mind as they sold out workers under Bill Shorten and his union mates. Clean Event—