Adam Bandt – Dark Day for Democracy

This is a dark day for democracy and the rule of law. When there are claims that 7/11 were stealing money from their workers, the government didn’t lift a finger, when there’s claims that casino bosses are rigging machines and breaking the law, the government doesn’t lift a finger. 

But when a union donates money to a citizens’ group, to speak up and hold the government to account, the government sends in the police in the full view of the nightly news.

This isn’t to do with the AFP, the AFP were doing the job that was asked of them.

This is squarely at the foot of the government, who established a little while ago, the Registered Organisations Commission, an organisation people may not have heard of, but is turning out to be for unions what the ABCC was for the construction industry.

The ROC has shown it is not a watch dog, it is an attack dog. And it beggars belief, it beggars belief that the first port of call when you want to get documents from someone in a case that is before the court, is to send in the police. 

This organisation, well, let’s look at the chronology–the government said ‘let’s look at the organisations commission, we want you to start an investigation into a union and a claims it might have given money to a political organisation, a campaigning organisation called GetUp’, the next thing we know, they start that investigation and before they even ask the union to hand over the documents, they send in the police.

Now, I don’t have any particular with the AWU, the AWU have publicly criticised the Greens for moving too quickly towards renewables. 

But that is not the point, that is not the point. In Australia, you don’t send in the police against your political opponents. You don’t have raids on organisations for documents, that they would have been willing to hand over, and indeed, properly did hand over, in the royal commission a couple of years ago.

Malcolm Turnbull is becoming more like Donald Trump every day. We are back now in the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era, where if you dare to speak up in this country, the government will crack down on you. We are seeing it with environmental groups and we are seeing it with unions–if you’ve got a white collar, the government turns a blind eye, but if you have a blue collar, the government throws the book at you.