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

The Labor Party scoffs at this. But we know that the price of a unit in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane is up by 30 per cent because of the involvement of the CFMEU. Does the Leader of the Opposition have any regard for that whatsoever? No, he does not, because this Leader of the Opposition will always stand up for the union bosses over the union workers.

We saw recently, only on 6 October, an incident that occurred at a mining site in Queensland where the CFMEU was on strike, and there was this tirade of abuse, as the Leader of the House mentioned before, from CFMEU members to family members of workers that were working on this mine site. It was absolutely disgraceful, the language and the intimidation that took place. The police had warned the CFMEU members about this. But who do you think should turn up to provide moral support to the CFMEU? It was the godfather of the union movement in this country. We refer to him as the Leader of the Opposition in this place. The godfather of the union movement turned up to provide moral encouragement to the criminals within the CFMEU membership. They have provided $3 million from the CFMEU to the Labor Party since he was elected Leader of the Opposition. No wonder Australians look at this Leader of the Opposition and recognise that he does not have the moral fortitude to become Prime Minister of this country. It is clear that this man supports the criminals within the CFMEU—not one word against the conduct of those people. It just shows that the character of this Leader of the Opposition is absolutely lacking. (Time expired)

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