The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has challenged Tony Abbott to participate in a town hall-style debate on who had achieved more for workers’ rights, saying “make my day”.
The prime minister has previously said that Shorten had questions to answer “about whether – when he was the leader of the Australian Workers Union – deals were done which ripped off the workers to advantage the union”.
Shorten’s successor as the AWU Victorian state secretary, Cesar Melhem, resigned as Labor’s whip in the Victorian upper house on Monday after allegations were aired at the royal commission into trade union governance and corruption about the contents of an agreement with a cleaning company, Cleanevent Australia.
Shorten, who was the union’s state secretary from 1998 to 2006, also faced questions on Thursday about claims that he had overseen a deal with a building company in which the firm agreed to pay employees’ union dues.
Fairfax Media reported that the AWU’s Victorian branch invoiced Winslow Constructors in 2005 for $38,228.68 to pay for 105 union memberships.
Shorten said he had always sought to improve workers’ pay and conditions and described Thursday’s newspaper article as “an unfair smear”. He said the agreement in question had delivered pay rises for the workers.
Asked whether he accepted there was a conflict of interest if employers paid employees’ union dues, Shorten said: “I accept that if employers and employees work out matters that is up to them. What I do know is that in Tony Abbott’s royal commission into trade unions I always expected there would be some political smear and unfairness.
“What I say to Tony Abbott about what he’s saying is: let’s have a town hall debate, Tony. Let’s talk about what you’ve done for workers in Australia with WorkChoices and I’ll stack it up against what I’ve done looking after Australia’s workers. I say to Tony Abbott: make my day.”
Shorten sought to highlight Abbott’s position as workplace relations minister in the Howard government from 2001 to 2003. The government subsequently legislated controversial changes to workplace relations laws known as WorkChoices.
Shorten did not respond directly to a question about what he made of the views of other union leaders who disapproved of deals in which employers paid union dues.
“I haven’t seen those comments,” he said. “The union movement and I spend every day representing people, me in parliament, the unions in workplaces. I understand it’s in Tony Abbott’s political interest to cause some mischief. What I would say though is that the record speaks for itself.”
The education minister, Christopher Pyne, questioned whether workers at Winslow had been left worse off as a result of the deal. He said businesses were unlikely to pay thousands of dollars to the union unless there was a benefit to the businesses.
“They must have been expecting to get something in return,” Pyne said.
“I’m sure they weren’t providing it to the AWU because of Mr Shorten’s winning smile, and Mr Shorten needs to explain what on the other side of the ledger was the consideration for that amount of money being paid to the AWU.”
Pyne said Shorten’s call for a town hall debate was “a ridiculous distraction” and “quite frankly slightly ludicrous”. He said the opposition leader must “stop hiding behind these artifices probably suggested to him by his office” and deal with the questions.
Labor’s employment spokesman, Brendan O’Connor, said the government had set up the taxpayer-funded royal commission to attack its political opponents. Shorten said he was happy to cooperate with the commission if it asked him to appear to give evidence.
