Sally McManus blasts Peter Dutton for ‘relentless anti-union rhetoric’

The Liberals’ continued attack on everyday Australians and wages will keep them in the shadows for years to come, Peter Dutton has been warned.

Sally McManus has launched a fresh attack on Peter Dutton and the opposition, blasting them for continuing a “relentless, repetitive, ridiculous anti-union rhetoric”.

In a speech to the National Press Club, the Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary praised the new Labor government for their successful jobs and skills summit last month that she said heralded a new era of workers’ rights.

But she criticised the Liberal leader for failing to sit down with unions and industry and maintaining an antiquated view of non-collaboration and non-co-operation.

Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus has used a speech to the National Press Club to blast the opposition. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“It is clear the opposition can find little internal consensus on the major issues facing Australia – gender equality, integrity and climate change,” Ms McManus said.

“But there appears to be one remaining safe space for the Liberal Party – denigrating people who join unions and continuing to call people who represent workers ‘union thugs’.

“The anti-union stance of the new Opposition Leader is not new and it is certainly not original. This hyper-aggression towards, and demonising of, unions had its genesis in 1983.”

She accused Mr Dutton of continuing the Liberals’ ‘30-year war’ against wage growth and workers’ rights. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

She called it a “30-year war”, a campaign that “delivered falling real wages, workers not sharing in productivity, profound levels of job insecurity; growing and glaring income and wealth disparities, and one of the most gender segregated workforces in the OECD”.

“As we try to fix the wages crisis, job insecurity and the gender pay gap, we will be subject to the language of the ‘30-year war’,” she said.

“Peter Dutton and Michaelia Cash will try to rely on the caricatures to create something scarier than people not being able to pay their bills.

“Here’s three vintage tunes you can expect to hear: the ‘wage price spiral’; second, the hypothetical scenarios of strikes across small ‘mum and dad’ businesses; and lastly, the use of the term ‘union thug’.”

Ms McManus said Australians had voted to change the government in order to get wages moving again, and the opposition could not afford to lag behind.

“They will use the old anti-union caricatures as a device so they don’t have to defend their system of keeping wages low,” she said.

“Australia can be, and must be, so much better than this.

“We have to get the job done.”