George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

No, I cannot. It would not be appropriate for me to do so, so I certainly will not. The Heydon royal commission is still ongoing. We are still to await its final report at the end of this year. But, already, in the published interim report we have had shocking revelations of criminality, of intimidation, of physical violence, of threats of harm to the wellbeing of honest people who have come forward to the royal commission to expose that culture of criminality with which the CFMEU and its senior officials, and certain other militant trade unions as well, I am sorry to say, are associated. You would understand why those witnesses need to be protected. But what a shocking thing it is that they should need to be protected, in modern Australia today, from threats of physical harm and violence to them by trade unionists!