Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thought I was going to grow horns and a tail there for a while, because I was a union rep in my younger days and it seems that they are the epitome of all evil. Let me tell the previous speaker that I have a lot of union officials who are friends of mine. They are presidents of our P&Cs, they sell raffle tickets at our local shows, they stand out in the hot sun selling tickets for our local shows, they run our rugby league and they run our voluntary fire brigade boards. They are not people with horns and tails as the previous speaker—who is laughing and thinks it is funny that people should do those things—says. I suppose he does so because he has never in his life such things. His sort of mentality was abroad in this place 100 years ago when we went down the mines. One in 31 of us never came back up again with that sort of mentality abroad in this place. Unlike him I have a record for standing up to unions when there was a time to stand up. I did not notice any Liberals standing beside us when we stood up in Queensland when they turned the lights out. We were the only government in Australian history that actually confronted them. I did not notice you blokes. You were hiding. You were lucky the lights were out so they could not see you. We could not find you. There is a time when there are excesses.

The reason I rise to speak is that numbskulls on my right here and also on the left—I do not want to let them off—are continuing to back the superannuation funds in Australia. I want to speak in praise of some of the trade union members on those superannuation funds.

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