Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

What I would say to Senator Cash is perhaps if your government had been less focused on playing politics on a royal commission which was all about attacking the Labor Party and the trade union movement, maybe if you'd paid more attention to what was already public, you might have actually had the courage to do what the Prime Minister has done. That is to take the strongest action that could be taken against organised crime, violence and thuggery in the trade union movement, and we do so not because we are anti union; we are pro union.

We do so because we believe trade unions, trade unionists and workers deserve far better than the thuggery, corruption, violence and association with criminals that we have seen. Unfortunately, those opposite spent so much time in government playing a political agenda and trying to attack the Labor Party and the labour movement that they didn't do the job that they should have done. (Time expired)