Turnbull
Unions accuse Turnbull of hypocrisy
Dave Noonan – National Secretary CFMEU
Construction unions have slammed a decision by Malcolm Turnbull to block moves aimed at restraining abuse of the coercive powers of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) today.
Earlier today the Coalition voted to disallow a Ministerial direction to give construction workers some basic protections against the coercive powers of the ABCC, using its numbers in the senate to block the move.
CFMEU Construction National Secretary, Dave Noonan accused Mr Turnbull of double standards, pointing out the Opposition Leader’s decision last night to exercise his own right to silence over the fake email affair.
‘Malcolm Turnbull is happy to exercise his right to silence but through the actions of his colleagues in the senate today he has sought to deny thousands of Australian construction workers even minimal protections,’ Mr Noonan said.
Under the ABCC coercive powers Australian construction workers can be stripped of the right to silence and forced to give evidence about union meetings.
‘Apparently, politicians and senior bureaucrats can hide behind their right to silence even in the face of serious allegations and yet construction workers can be fined or jailed for trying to exercise the same right,’ Mr Noonan said.
‘This is a shameful act of hypocrisy from Mr Turnbull and the Coalition parties.’
For further information CFMEU and ArksTribe.
Rights on site campaigns to abolish the ABCC
Comrade David
As a union OH&S officer, I fully support your campaign to abolish the ABCC.
Only leaders like Howard and his ilk(including Turnbull) would introduce such draconian and inhumane legislation, anyway.
We only have to look at their approach to other issues to know that that they don’t care about social justice, human rights or proper care of the environment.
Let’s consider their actions on WorkChoices, OHS&W (and the damage that Reith did to the former National OH&S Commission before replacing it with the ineffectual ASCC), East Timor, West Papua, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, asylum seekers, the Iraq War, Vietnam, letting Nazi war criminals in Australia get off the hook etc etc
While I am strongly critical of Turnbull and this vote in the Senate, I don’t think he or his mates are hypocrites, however. They are behaving exactly as we would expect from an extremely right wing, intolerant, callous, human rights abusing conservative political party.
It is nothing like a true liberal party and really never has been.
Many of the few true liberals who were members of the Pseudo Liberal Party left a long time ago.
It is a great tragedy for ordinary Australian workers that the ALP is a pseudo labour party. The Right & the Pseudo Left of this party are very little better and sometimes worse than the Pseudo Liberal Party.
We all have a great struggle to get effective and fully enforced
OHS&W laws, for the ABCC to be abolished, the dropping of charges against Ark Tribe and for a nation that is committed to human rights and care of the planet.
We also need to counter the arguments of Paul Kelly (The Australian) and Andrew Bolte (The Herald Sun & The Advertiser) when they praise Gillard for having the guts to stand up to the naughty old unions.
A la lucha continua!
En solidaridad
Andy Alcock