ACTU forced to backflip over ‘put Liberals last’ campaign pitch

The ACTU has been forced into an embarrassing retreat on its ‘put the Liberals last’ campaign.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus. Picture: AAP

Australia’s union movement has been forced to back down on its “put the Liberals last” election campaign and retract material from key Victorian seats, after Bill Shorten directed union bosses to turn their attention to punishing One Nation and Queensland senator Fraser Anning.

The Australian revealed last week the Australian Council of Trade Unions had defied the Opposition Leader’s call to preference One Nation last amid a heightened debate over hate speech and racism in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack.

The ACTU released “put the Liberals last” brochures in Health Minister Greg Hunt’s Victorian electorate of Flinders and also invited voters to take that pledge online, saying the Liberal Party was undermining Australia’s living standards.

But in a retreat an ACTU spokesman said the union movement would be advising voters to place One Nation and Senator Anning last if it handed out how-to-vote cards at the May election.

“The only place the union movement has been advocating to ‘put the Liberals Last’ has been in a handful seats in Victoria where we believed One Nation was not standing. It seems One Nation is standing in one of these seats, we are no longer using that slogan in this seat,” the spokesman said.

“Everywhere else in the country we have been advocating union members change the government and vote for parties that will change the rules to give workers better rights, One Nation is not one of these parties.

“The union movement has always opposed the platform of One Nation. If the union movement distributes how-to-vote material at election time, One Nation and Anning will be last. Not only do their policies go against our anti-racist principles, they are no friends of working people, they have a track record of supporting cuts to workers’ rights.”

Mr Shorten pledged to put One Nation candidates and Senator Anning last on how-to-vote cards after the Christchurch massacre, while Scott Morrison announced yesterday the Liberals would preference Labor above Pauline Hanson’s party.

Senator Hanson has claimed to be a victim of a media stitch-up after she was secretly recorded by Al Jazeera questioning the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, which led to tough gun laws in Australia.

She has also defended her top advisers who were filmed attempting to solicit donations from the US National Rifle Association.

Senator Anning has been widely condemned for blaming the Christchurch attack, in which an Australian man with far right extremist views shot dead 50 people at two mosques, on New Zealand’s immigration program and “fanatical” Muslims.

A bipartisan censure motion will be moved against Senator Anning in the Senate next week. Senator Hanson plans to abstain from the vote.