MARK DREYFUS
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
CANBERRA
THURSDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2019
SUBJECT: John Setka
JOURNALIST: John Setka going - the Labor Party must be happy?
MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Yes, we're very satisfied that John Setka has been removed from the Australian Labor Party, which was what Anthony Albanese, our leader set out to do and that outcome has now been achieved.
JOURNALIST: Are you disappointed it's taken this long with a legal battle that's now being called off?
DREYFUS: Of course. John Setka wasted a lot of his union members money on racing off to the Supreme Court of Victoria and starting a case there, losing and then appealing to the Court of Appeal. Its that appeal to the Court of Appeal that he's now withdrawn, which has cleared the way for him to be removed from the Labor Party. That's now happened.
JOURNALIST: Jacqui Lambie is still signalling she won't be supporting the ensuring integrity bill though unless he resigns from the CFMMEU as well. What would you say to her?
DREYFUS: Labor doesn't control the CFMMEU. It's a matter for the CFMMEU as to who it chooses as its state secretaries. And I'd ask Jacqui Lambie perhaps to consider the wider interests of the union movement here and not make this just about one particular union official.
JOURNALIST: What do you think of the ensuring integrity bill as a whole?
DREYFUS: Well, of course, it's seeking to impose standards on the union movement which are not imposed on other parts of Australian society. But that's, of course, consistent with the concerted attack that this Liberal Government - the Abbott Government, Turnbull Government, Morrison Government - have made over more than six years now.
They want to weaken the union movement. They want Australia to become a low wage country. They want Australia to become a country in which unions don't have the kind of influence that they have to protect the workers of Australia. We will resist those attacks on the union movement.
ENDS
