Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to revelations today that lawyers working for the royal commission personally briefed the disgraced Kathy Jackson on the issues. My question is: given the government drafted the terms of reference for the royal commission does the Prime Minister support the conduct of the counsel assisting the commission in this regard?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All I can say is at least there is one dodgy union official that they do not like. They should not like all dodgy union officials—that is the point. The only reason why they do not like one particular dodgy union official is that she was a whistleblower. It is not dodgy conduct by union officials that they are against; it is whistleblowing by union officials that they are against.

I have been asked: do I think the royal commission and counsel assisting the royal commission have conducted themselves appropriately? Of course they have conducted themselves appropriately. Members opposite are very well connected, as we know, with union officials. They are very well connected with people whose union has been well and truly dragged before the royal commission quite properly because of the dodgy dealings that we have seen and because of the corruption and the criminality that we have seen. If members opposite have any problem whatsoever with the conduct of the royal commission there are obvious procedures that they can take. There are obvious processes that they can go through.

This royal commission was set up because it was absolutely necessary to get to the bottom of rorts, rackets and rip-offs, of corruption and of criminality inside the trade union movement. This was the dark side of unionism that members opposite pretended did not exist. This was the corrupt business model that members opposite were part of but did not want to admit. It is absolutely important and necessary for our country, it is absolutely important and necessary for the union movement and indeed for the Labor Party itself that this royal commission do its job.

I refer to Martin Ferguson—not just a distinguished former member of this place but a former president of the ACTU—a better man than most of the people sitting opposite right now. He said:

I just don't see the royal commission as a political play thing.

He said that this royal commission was a necessary part of the renewal and the reform not just of the union movement but of the Labor Party itself. I say it is high time that members opposite, whether it be on the free trade agreement or whether it be on the royal commission, stop listening to the CFMEU, stop channelling the CFMEU and start listening to decent Labor people like Martin Ferguson and Bob Hawke.