Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

Again, sadly, workers have not been the beneficiaries of the increasing wealth of the unions they belong to. In fact, it is actually now quite the opposite. Again, if I go to the penalty rates example, this is an issue by which the unions themselves have been very, very vocal in this space. But what we've actually seen is, instead of promoting the interests of their workers, they work with the big end of town to collectively promote their own interests at the expense of the workers they allegedly represent. Let's look at low-paid workers at Coles, McDonald's, Woolworths, KFC, Just Jeans, Big W, Target—the list goes on and on and on. They have all had their penalty rates cut by their unions. So, while these workers, under the deals being done, are getting poorer, every day the unions are getting richer.