Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I want to support the Leader of the House on this motion, because this is another demonstration of the way in which the modern Labor Party has been completely captured by the union movement. There is no worse union in this country than the CFMEU. The Australian public understand this. I was reminded of that in a book that I read recently—a couple of years ago now. The book was called I heard you paint houses. Essentially, it was a detailed how-to guide, which the CFMEU is now referring to as some sort of reference document. It detailed the activities of the Teamsters in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

We can come to Jimmy Hoffa. There are many people within the CFMEU that fit that Jimmy Hoffa bill. This is the reality. Somehow the modern Labor Party, under this Leader of the Opposition, have allowed themselves to be compromised to the point where they are allowing the modern-day Teamsters to pull the strings on a daily basis. This is unacceptable.

I feel for the member for Indi, because in her electorate yesterday there was a robocall scare campaign which the CFMEU masters during the last election—during periods in government and opposition the CFMEU has mastered the intimidation and scare campaign. It shows, as the Leader of the House points out, that the two organisations, the Australian Labor Party and the CFMEU, have once again acted in close concert, in this case to intimidate, or to attempt to intimidate, the member for Indi. I know the member for Indi, and I know that she is not going to be intimidated by this process. The same tactics have been demonstrated in South Australia, where the union movement has attempted to vilify Senator Xenophon. Senator Xenophon has not fallen for these tactics either, and the message to the Australian public is that they should not fall for the Labor Party's and union's tactics, because, as we know, the CFMEU fully owns and operates this Labor Party and in particular this Leader of the Opposition.

The Leader of the Opposition, as he demonstrated, during his time as a union leader presided over deal after deal after deal. In some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars was paid by the employer or the employer group to the union, to the AWU. Lo and behold, the union agreement—the EBA—is struck shortly thereafter, which takes penalty rates away from those workers, and the workers do not even know about the special payment that was made during the period of negotiation from the employer to the AWU. Now, this was not just a one-off occasion. This was a course of conduct presided over by the Leader of the Opposition in his capacity as secretary of the AWU.

If you want to have a look at the activities that are going on within the union movement otherwise, we know that within the CFMEU, across the union movement otherwise, as was detailed in the royal commission presided over by Justice Heydon, dozens and dozens of union leaders across the country have been charged with criminal offences. They are defended on a daily basis by the Labor Party, and it is outrageous. But you have to again ask yourself the question: why would this be so? Why would this Leader of the Opposition allow himself to be held to ransom by these union leaders? Well, when you look around, it is impossible—and this is why there should be a suspension of standing orders—

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