ACTU Says OK to break the law

The Meeting Place > Political > ACTU Says OK to break the law

ACTU Says OK to break the law

7 yrs ago

ACTU which represents 10 per cent of employed workers say it's OK to break the law .

Free reign to the thugs in the MFEAU????

"What law does Sally McManus think she is allowed to break?

The nation’s most powerful union leader, the national secretary of the ACTU, has left this question hanging over Labor and the unions after her appearance on the ABC’s 7.30 program last night.

“I believe in the rule of law where the law is fair and the law is right,’’ she said. “But when it’s unjust, I don’t think there’s a problem with breaking it.”

There was no sense of a reluctance to break the law. The message was that obeying the law was conditional, that the ACTU felt it could pick and choose when to submit to the power of the nation’s legislators and courts.

Two of those legislators, federal Labor MPs Graham Perrett and Rob Mitchell, quickly sided with McManus. Union members and supporters also backed her on social media.

The union movement swaggers into national debate, confident in its influence over Labor and in the power of its volunteers at the ballot box. It needs to check its hubris.

All the same, it is revealing that the instinctive reaction from union supporters, Labor MPs and Labor advisers was that there was “no problem” with breaking the law."

David Crowe

POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTCANBERRA

7 comments

FEDERAL POLITICS
'Anarcho-Marxist claptrap': Liberals slam ACTU boss Sally McManus over law
March 16 2017 - 10:04AM

* Tom McIlroy
Senior Turnbull government figures are rounding on controversial comments by new ACTU boss Sally McManus supporting workers rights to break laws they view as unjust, which Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne dubbed "anarcho-Marxist claptrap".

A day after being endorsed as the first female secretary of the trade union peak body on Wednesday, Ms McManus' first major television interview instantly drew criticism from the government.

Mr Pyne said the comments show Ms McManus, a former secretary of the NSW branch of the Australian Services Union, was not up to the job of leading the union movement.

"What Sally McManus has said is the kind of anarchic Marxist clap trap we used to hear from anarchists at Adelaide University in the 1980s," he told ABC radio on Thursday morning.

Malcolm Turnbull doubts there'll be much co-operation with the new secretary of the ACTU if she stands by her comments that the peak union is above "unjust laws".

Sally McManus, who was this week promoted inside the ACTU, has drawn criticism after suggesting it was OK to break unjust laws.

"If she thinks that she and her unions are above the law then there's not much we can do with her I'm afraid," Mr Turnbull told 3AW's Neil Mitchell on Friday.

He equated her comments to a culture of thuggery as seen in the construction union.
Asked about something she wrote on social media last year claiming Mr Turnbull has no central beliefs which guide him, he said "that's just abuse, isn't it?"

He cited his commitment to freedom, to the liberty of the individual, to drive economic growth and nation building.

"I had the courage as prime minister to dissolve both houses of parliament so that we could get passed laws that would restore the rule of law to the construction sector," he said.
"A lot of people said we wouldn't succeed ... those laws have been passed."

ex PS

7 yrs ago

I think that anyone bothering to take the whole content and context of the conversation into thoughtful account will discover that the individual in question was talking about when lives were at risk in the workplace. But I guess that that is an inconveiniance as it does not prove the biased point of the commentor.

It seems that truth is just an inconvieniance when a point of propaganda is being made. We all have a political bias, but it should at least be tempered with an appearance of integretty and fairness. Otherwise it renders the opinions of the person involved totally invalid.

It reminds me of a statement Herr Goebles made during the Hitler period, " If you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes the truth".

“I believe in the rule of law where the law is fair and the law is right,’’ she said. “But when it’s unjust, I don’t think there’s a problem with breaking it.”

Here is what she said ,.,,

i have heard no one including Shorten support her view that obeying the law is selective .

if you don't agree with a law become a politician and change it .

It would be anarchy if we followed this Union Leaders advise,

ex PS

7 yrs ago

Oh well in that case I apoligise, she said one sentence in the whole interview.

I for one will waste no more time reading your comments.

No need to get huffy PC , it is that sentence that everybody including Shorten find objectionable .

It is only the far left nutters that agree.

Charlie

7 yrs ago

I think it was merely McManus introducing herself that blew up in her face, and who would expect any different?

'Biased interviewer' exPS Oh really? I dont think the ABC has a single interviewer who is not from the left.

You are the only person, including many political scribes, who has claimed McManus was speaking of workplace risks.

Interview transcript of relevant comments.

LEIGH SALES: Do you believe in the rule of law?
SALLY MCMANUS: Ah, yes.
LEIGH SALES: Given that, will the ACTU consider distancing itself from the CFMEU, which has faced 118 separate legal proceedings where it's been found to have either broken the law or acted in contempt of court?
SALLY MCMANUS: There's no way we will be doing that. I'll tell you this: the CFMEU, when they have been fined, they have been fined for taking industrial action.
LEIGH SALES: Illegal industrial action?
SALLY MCMANUS: It might be illegal industrial action according to our current laws - and our current laws are wrong. It shouldn't be so hard for workers in our country to be able to take industrial action when they need to.
Quite often these workers have stopped work because a worker has been killed on a building site.
And know this: that union gets fined more than the companies that actually kill workers. So Grocon got fined $330,000 for killing five workers, where the CFMEU got fined even more. And I just think that's totally wrong.
LEIGH SALES: Yet nonetheless, we live in a country where there are laws that are established by a parliament that all citizens are expected to abide by. So, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with those laws, you said that you believe in the rule of law?
SALLY MCMANUS: Yeah, I believe in the rule of law where the law is fair, when the law is right. But when it's unjust, I don't think there's a problem with breaking it.

Video and full transcript at

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2017/s4636757.htm

Sophie

7 yrs ago

The law could very well be an "ass"..however ..it does not matter a jot how "unjust" we think a law is..it is still the law..

In my opinion Sally McManus is NOT allowed to break the law and I believe this is what she said..

“I believe in the rule of law where the law is fair and the law is right,’’ she said. “But when it’s unjust, I don’t think there’s a problem with breaking it.”

Well.. Sally has not got the right to break a law based on her own opinions and judgements..she is wrong..

New ACTU secretary Sally McManus told the Greens mayor of a Sydney inner-west council that she vigorously supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, a stand directly at odds with Labor policy and local federal MP Anthony Albanese.

In a 2011 letter to then Marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne, Ms McManus congratulated the council for supporting a campaign “to end the violation of human rights and to campaign against Israel as a means of peaceful resistance”.
As the then head of the NSW branch of the Australian Services Union, Ms McManus said her union branch endorsed the BDS to “support boycotts and products made in illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

She also supported divesting union funds from any companies “profiteering from the occupation”.

Ms McManus’s stand puts her closer to the camp of many Greens on this issue, creating distance with Labor policy even though Ms McManus is an ALP member.
Ms McManus was not available for comment yesterday.

The BDS is supported enthusiastically by some Greens although their party abandoned official support for an Israel boycott in 2011.

Ms McManus hails from the hard Left of the union movement, and was elected unopposed with support from Left unions that dominate the ACTU after the sudden resignation of Dave Oliver. She has identified herself as a socialist activist in the past, and her amicable relations with hardline Greens such as senator Lee Rhiannon stretch back over a decade.

Ms McManus was also instrumental in helping establish the “Wreck the Joint” campaign.

* The Australian
* 12:00AM March 21, 2017
* Save?

Yep, a tough old world feminist. Didn't know about the campaign "wreck the joint" but it fits her personality. So she is actually telling young thugs-if you don't like a law, break it, typical union behaviour.

Daisy

7 yrs ago

Sally McManus was not wrong. Joe Bjelke Petersen outlawed all protests in Qld. Was that a fair and just law or was it undemocratic? The NSW LNP government recently passed similar laws in relation to protesting against gas mining and fracking in the State. Anyone daring to protest can receive a jail term of 7 years and/or massive fines. SUCH LAWS ARE DANGEROUS AND THREATEN DEMOCRACY. Go back to the days when gay people were jailed....were they fair and just laws? Laws that are not fair and just need to be challenged and changed and one way to do that is to defy those laws and break them. Such laws are usually put in place to suit the shadowy agendas of the political parties who introduce them.

7 comments

To make a comment, please register or login

ACTU Says OK to break the law

Preview your comment