Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

See—they are already laughing. Come in spinner. Revolutionaries are not always perfect. Revolutionaries sometimes have to cut corners and do things in order to bring about a result. But she will be remembered as a transforming union leader. I note the opposition laughing and mocking Kathy Jackson. I wonder if they will laugh after they hear this quotation. In an interview on radio 2GB on 16 October last year, Kathy Jackson recalled a meeting in 2011 of the HSU council at Darling Harbour, after these matters were publicly aired. She is quoted as saying:

There would have been 900 delegates … I kid you not … This is after I went to the police … (Michael) Williamson got a standing ovation … they played the Rocky theme when he walked in … there were people heckling me and screaming at me and (fellow HSU whistleblower) Marco Bolano … that I was a traitor to the movement … people were calling out ‘Judas’ from the crowd … this went for four hours.

I do not hear you laughing now, Members of the opposition. What this points to is that in the HSU there was a cultural problem, where ripping off money from workers was regarded as the norm. The former leader of the Labor Party Mark Latham indicated that himself. Craig Thomson was not an embarrassment to the Labor Party; he was the gold standard in how to behave. And yet you are laughing today at Kathy Jackson. You should hang your heads in shame. Kathy Jackson is a revolutionary, and Kathy Jackson will be remembered as a lion of the union movement. As was written by Gary Johns, a former Labor member of this House, a former Labor minister, the royal commission:

… may change the nature of union-employer relations; it may change the ability of trade union leaders to remain in positions for years and hand power to a chosen candidate.

Jackson, Athena, toppled two union leaders … In her wisdom, and in deciding to wage war with the HSU, she may well have strangled the union-ALP umbilical (ac)cord.

More strength to her arm. I look forward to hearing the contribution of members of the opposition.

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