Piers Akerman: If only we had a Labor leader like Ben Chifley

SENATOR Michaelia Cash knows a union puppet when she sees one, and she’s got Bill Shorten’s measure, writes Piers Akerman.

Australian Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

THE self-obsession of the homosexual and alphabetical co-community knows no bounds.

Can anyone imagine any other fixation stealing the headlines from Hitler’s pre-World War II threats to ­Europe, or Japan’s march through Asia, or Osama bin Laden’s pledge to destroy the West?

Yet, with North Korea’s ­lunatic leader Kim Jong-un pledging to launch a ballistic missile attack on Guam perhaps this weekend Labor ­leader Bill Shorten is mimicking the Greens, the ABC’s and the gay lobby’s hysteria over the planned postal plebiscite.

It’s not as if there isn’t a plethora of other deeply worrying domestic issues with which to wrestle either.

Labor and the Greens are overwhelmingly to blame for sending power bills through the roof with their unquestioning embrace inefficient renewable energy — but not a word about the hardship they are creating for Australians.

Senator Michaelia Cash in Senate Question Time.

Shorten is equally silent on the outrageous proposal that two of the most thuggish ­unions, the rogue CFMEU and the Maritime Union of Australia, join forces in a super-union which would have the capacity to hold the nation to ransom.

His tacit endorsement of the proposed merger stands in stunning contrast to past ALP leaders, whose tough stand against unions which threatened the nation was both principled and courageous.

Former ACTU boss and Labor PM Bob Hawke knew corruption when he saw it and he did not hesitate in acting to deregister the Builders’ Labourers Federation in 1986.

Last year, Hawke called on Labor and the ACTU to consider cutting ties with the CFMEU even as his successor Paul Keating warned against the influence the union movement had within the ALP.

It doesn’t help that Labor’s workplace relations spokesman, Brendan O’Connor, is the brother of CFMEU national secretary Michael O’Connor. Nor does it help that the systemically criminal CFMEU last week became the first union in the country to rack up $10 million in fines after receiving a $300,000 fine in the Federal Court.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash nailed the union and Shorten when she asked whether he thought it appropriate the ALP maintain its strong connection to a lawless organisation.

The fines were imposed after the union illegally disrupted work on three vital Brisbane infrastructure projects, where more than 600 workers were found to have engaged in unlawful industrial action. “Australians understand the need to abide by the rule of law and yet this corrupt union thinks the law should not apply to it,” Cash said.

Compare Shorten’s support for the CFMEU with Labor hero Ben Chifley’s handling of rogue Communist mining ­unions during the great Coal Strike of 1949. He sent the army into the mines and brought an end to the seven-week strike which had brought the nation to its knees.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

At the six-week mark, that dispute cost the nation more than $155 million in lost wages, and more than $465 million in goods not produced. The ­industry lost more than 116 million man-hours and more than the equivalent of $5.3 million was paid out in unemployment relief.

Chifley, the former railway engine driver from Bathurst, remains widely regarded as one of the finest prime ministers the nation has had. He lost office over an overreaching bid to nationalise the banks.

Shorten, on the other hand, has a shameful record for selling out the workers he was paid to represent as the head of the AWU and, according to Malcolm Turnbull last week, could have gone to jail under new laws the government is ­introducing aimed squarely at banning the sweetheart deals the former AWU boss cut with employers, notably Cleanevent, which paid the AWU $75,000 to suppress wages.

The federal government will attempt to block the creation of the CFMEU and MUA “super union” by forcing the Fair Work Commission to apply a public-interest test for any mergers.

As Turnbull said: “They’ve been essentially lawless. One of the reasons they feel they’ve been able to get away with it is because of their size.

“So why would you want ... two already lawless unions who are big to become even bigger?”

This will be a test for the crossbenchers and for Labor members and Greens who may have concerns that go beyond the desire to satisfy a minority of homosexuals who wish to tear down the cultural tradition of marriage that has maintained the family unit as the strongest support for the safe nurturing of children for millennia.

But it’s not just the merger that has exposed Shorten.

He is also actively defending the secrecy surrounding corrupt payments paid by some employers to union bosses. Again, Turnbull accurately summed up Shorten’s interest when he told broadcaster Neil Mitchell: “Shorten has been here seriously defending secrecy and defending the practice, as we saw from the Heydon Royal Commission, of corrupting payments.

“It is ridiculous. He has no interest in the workers. He is a union boss who wants to look after union bosses.”

This serious charge may not be in precisely the same league as the threat posed by the North Korean dictator but it is actually within the means of Shorten and the Labor Party to act responsibly in the national interest. But he’s not interested because he puts union bosses before workers and the traducing of traditional marriage ­before both. The Australian people should take a long hard look at this poseur and deny him any opportunity to ever occupy The Lodge.