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While it is a matter of public record the Turnbull government blocked attempts to establish a royal commission into the financial services sector on multiple occasions, the question as to why, especially when it expeditiously facilitated a similar inquiry into corruption within the union movement, is of more than academic interest.
Whether or not the person in the now notorious 'fake tradie' ad is or isn't a 'real' tradie is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is a primary example of the co-option of the language of class struggle and economic justice that has so thoroughly poisoned economic debate in the industrialised West. Implicit within it is a patronising view of the working class that dismisses them as gullible dupes who can be made to entrench the privilege of the few in return for the paltry crumbs of consumer hedonism.
The Coalition's election campaign portrays union officials as industrial thugs. But far too often, they are the only support mechanism standing between stressed Australian workers and human tragedy.
Brendan Byrne spent nearly two decades in the union movement in various capacities. He is undertaking a Bachelor of Theology at the United Faculty of Theology. In addition to interests in philosophy, criminology, and cosmology, he is currently writing a novel.
Union officials and ministers of religion have much in common. No-one rings a union to tell them that they’re being treated well and paid decently. People only ring the union when they’re in trouble, and usually, by the time they get around to doing so, they’re in lots of trouble.