Bill Shorten sold workers down the river, says Malcolm Turnbull

Malcolm Turnbull says low-paid workers should fear a Labor government if Bill Shorten became prime minister.

Malcolm Turnbull has seized on Bill Shorten’s new book to criticise the Opposition Leader’s union past, saying low-paid workers should fear a Labor government if he becomes prime minister.

Following revelations from Mr Shorten that he still thinks like a union organiser, the Prime Minister attacked the “secret deal” struck with the company Clean­event while he was head of the Australian Workers Union.

“We think about the cleaners who worked for Cleanevent, some of the lowest paid workers in Australia who were represented by the honourable member and his union,’’ Mr Turnbull told parliament.

“They had wages and conditions traded away in a special deal, a secret deal between … that union, the Australian Workers Union, and the employer.

“He sold them down the river — that is how he looked after workers on low wages.”

He also attacked the former Labor government for what he called a “crooked deal” with the Transport Workers Union to put in place the Road Safety ­Remuneration Tribunal, which the Coalition successfully abolished last month.

“The low-paid workers that the Leader of the Opposition betrayed didn’t just work at Cleanevent. It was only a few weeks ago that 50,000 self-employed owner- drivers in the trucking industry were put out of work.

“The Leader of the Opposition has got a track record that should put every low-paid worker in Australia in fear of him forming a government.”

Scott Morrison also attacked Mr Shorten for “wanting to run the country like a union” and raised the spectre of the Health Services Union, which was found to have misused hundreds of thousands of dollars of member funds.

“We will not be using the bookkeeping skills of unions in how we run this country,” the Treasurer said.

“We all know what they do when it comes to bookkeeping in the union movement, and we all know what they do with credit cards in the union movement.

“And Bill Shorten certainly wants to put Australia’s future on the credit card with a higher tax burden on the Australian economy.

“I can assure you in the budget we won’t be going to the accounting standards of the union movement; we won’t be going to the bookkeeping school of the union movement to put this budget ­together.”

In his book, For the Common Good, Mr Shorten rejects ­Coalition attempts to “smear” his union background, saying he successfully negotiated enterprise bargaining agreements that balanced the interests of workers and employers.

“As Labor leader, I still think like an organiser. Whether it’s dealing with the rising influence of vested interests or solving a community-level problem, empowering people is the key,” he says in the book released yesterday by Melbourne University Press.

“As a unionist, I found I could actually help prevent unfairness and injustice.

“Importantly, unionists could make things better by working in a meaningful, co-operative way with employees and employers.”