Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Isn't it now clear that, because of this government's policies, when the parliament adjourns, millionaires will win, parents with children at The King's School will win, but pensioners will lose, people with rising electricity prices will lose, weekend workers will lose, children at public and Catholic schools will lose? Why does this Prime Minister only ever look after the big end of town and punish everybody else?

Mr Chester interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Infrastructure and Transport will cease interjecting.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member poses now as the champion of the workers—the same workers that he sold down the river, trading away their penalty rates, when he was a union official; the same workers who are threatened with violence by the CFMEU, by John Setka, a union official whom he depends on for his leadership and whom he will not condemn. He does not even have the courage to say that he should be sacked as an official of the CFMEU, any more than that hero from Watson was prepared to do—'Oh, it's a matter for the union.' After all, how much do you threaten people to actually get slammed by the member for Watson or the Leader of the Opposition?

Let's be quite clear: what John Setka threatened to do was take thugs from his union and follow hardworking public servants around, follow them home, threaten them with violence, threaten them in front of their children and threaten them at their clubs. You would think that a Labor Party that cared about the rule of law and about Australian values would call for him to be sacked. And what they have done? Nothing at all—no denunciation at all.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will resume his seat for a second.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

Ms Keay interjecting—

The Minister for the Environment and Energy will cease interjecting and is warned. The member for Braddon has already been warned and will leave under 94(a).

The member for Braddon then left the chamber.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So we have seen nothing but the limpest of response from the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Watson. Where is the champion of the law, the member for Isaacs? Has he been out there calling for action? Where has he been out there? They have done nothing to stand up for the rule of law.

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will resume his seat. I think those interjecting are missing the point. I simply refer members to my statements earlier in the week. This might be the last question time for a while, but, if members insist on disrupting the chamber and engaging in disorderly debate, they will be throwing themselves out. There might only be about 10 or 15 minutes to go, but I am not working on a quota.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At a public rally organised by the head of the largest single financial backer of the Labor Party, a union that delivered the leadership of the Labor Party to the member for Maribyrnong, we have seen a criminal, John Setka, with a record of dozens of convictions stand up and threaten officials with violence—threaten to track, harass, bully and menace officials of the Commonwealth government working for the Australian Building and Construction Commission. And what is the Leader of the Opposition's response to that? A rather limp dissociation, without any conviction. But the real message he sends is that he does not believe the CFMEU is breaking the law. He does not believe the CFMEU is a threat to the law. He wants to abolish the ABCC. He wants to once again put those thugs above the law. That is where he has failed. (Time expired)