Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (19:02): I have been waiting for the opportunity to follow ex-union boss Senator Doug Cameron in a debate such as this. I want to refer to an article in the Australian Financial Review of 16 November 2012. I notice Senator Cameron is leaving the chamber. I say to Senator Cameron in his absence: it is probably appropriate that you do leave, because you would not like what Grace Collier, the chief executive of Australian Dismissal Services, said in this article in the Australian Financial Review that I refer to tonight. She said: After … 20 years' experience working in unions and as an industrial relations consultant, I feel well placed to make observations about the union movement. Being employed in the union movement isn’t like working in a company. It can be a bit like working for a cult. All unions are different, but union officials … see themselves as soldiers in the war of labour versus capital, and to fight a war you need resources. In this environment, the group think is this: anything improper can be justified as proper when it is for "the good". Union troops know that breaking the law is sometimes required because when a law is "unjust" you have a "duty" to ignore it. Civil disobedience is okay if the end justifies the means. I do not have a great deal of time today, and I do want to hear my leader speak on other matters related to this very important topic, but this is a great article. It goes through some of the ways the union movement operates. I do not want to involve you in this, Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, but I see in the newspaper that you are running afoul of the union movement at the present time. Senator Kim Carr, who is in the chamber, well knows about this, because there is a man embedded in the union. You only have to look at Mr Craig Thomson to understand what unionists think: if you have to break the law, it is all good for the ultimate goal. If you look at what Mr Thomson did in relation to—or, sorry, is alleged to have done, I should say— Senator Abetz: No, they were findings by Fair Work Australia. Senator IAN MACDONALD: Thank you, Senator Abetz: they were findings by Fair Work Australia—and who could argue with that august body! They found that Mr Thomson grossly misused union funds. I say to you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that I am absolutely certain that Mr Craig Thomson was not the only union leader ever involved in that sort of activity. This article from Grace Collier makes very good reading, from what I would call an insider in the union movement. She went on to say: In the 1990s, the aura around Bruce Wilson of the Australian Workers Union was such that he was touted as a future prime minister. You will remember that Mr Bruce Wilson, whom I am talking about, is the guy involved in the slush fund affair which has engulfed Ms Gillard. The article continued: Our Prime Minister made a decision to begin a relationship with him. Partners of law firms don't recommend having relationships with people who work in their clients' businesses. It is not considered appropriate to put yourself in a potentially compromising position. The worst can happen, and for our Prime Minister it did. Now we find ourselves in the position we are in today. This was at the height of the Gillard-Wilson scandal over Slater and Gordon and the slush fund. Ms Collier went on to say: Over the past 11 years, I have been called upon to investigate many people for workplace misconduct. The hardest people to investigate are high-achieving, high-profile women executives. Their starting position is always a haughty refusal to answer questions or participate in investigations they consider beneath them. I might say that I am quoting from a woman journalist who is an insider in the union movement. She continued: Next they attempt to retain control by trying to impose their conditions and time frames on the investigation. (Time expired)