Two years ago myself and @DanWaltonAWU witnessed the AFP raid his union's offices. When we turned up to the AWU Melb office, the nations media were already assembled outside. They were there because Michaelia Cash's office (she was the Minister at the time) tipped them off.
The whole setup was clearly designed to make unions look bad in the eyes of the public by ensuring the raids were seen in living rooms across the country that night. Afterall, police only do raids when something really bad has happened, right?
But it turned out these raids were to get minutes of a meeting from over a decade ago about a donation to GetUp! These minutes had already been provided to a Royal Commission and the @AWUnion would have handed over if asked. So how did these raids come about?
The Government had just set up the Registered Organisations Commission (ROC), a special regulator with special laws just for unions making us more regulated than any organisation in the country. One of its first acts was to request the AFP conduct this raid.
Today the Federal Court found the investigation by the ROC was invalid. But the @AWUnion had to spend significant time and resources just to get this finding. Money and time that could be used to stop wage theft, protect jobs & helping workers get payrises
Now the Government is proposing a new law - the "Ensuring Integrity" Bill to give the ROC even more dangerous powers to start proceedings to shut down unions and disqualify union leaders. This will allow unprecedented harassment of Australian unions.
The people who can stop this law are @Senator_Patrick @JacquiLambie @PaulineHansonOz. They can stop this unfair and dangerous union bashing that in the end hurts ordinary working people. @AustralianLabor & @Greens have already pledged to do so. Three more votes are needed.
