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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-09-28 Daily Xml
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Shop Distributive and Allied Employees' Association

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:41): I would like to talk about the arrogance, the power, the influence and the control that the shoppies union, the SDA, has over the current Labor Party and the Labor government in South Australia. Three recent events are illustrative of this power.

There were the circumstances last week in the parliament when the shoppies union, and the right in particular, deliberately chose to embarrass the Premier whilst he was away by defeating his bill on gender equity that he personally championed. He has since indicated that he was very angry about the shoppies union and the Labor right organising the defeat of that bill while he was not even in the house or the chamber.

We have also seen confirmation in the last week that the Hon. Mr Malinauskas, a favoured son, one of the union bosses from the shoppies union, has now settled on a new property in one of the trendy, inner suburban areas of the Hon. Mr Atkinson's seat of Croydon, preparing to take over the seat at the next state election. In the last week or so we have also seen the elevation of the godfather of the Labor right, Senator Don Farrell, firstly back into the Senate after having been defeated by Premier Weatherill in his bid to become a member of the House of Assembly at the time of the last election, and subsequently being elected to the Senate, and now being elected to the position of deputy opposition leader.

This, of course, follows on from a recent example of the power and arrogance of the shoppies union when two prominent members of the shoppies union—Mr Malinauskas, then head of the shoppies union, and minister Jack Snelling—waltzed into the former premier's office, tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Goodbye, Mick,' and proceeded to kneecap a former premier, one being a member of the caucus and one who was not even a member of the caucus but just a member of the shoppies union. I should not say 'just a member of the shoppies union' because clearly the shoppies union has considerable power in South Australia.

Why does it have that power? A check of the Electoral Commission's disclosure of donations since the Labor Party was elected shows that the shoppies union has admitted to donating, or making contributions of, $2.57 million to the Labor Party since the Labor Party was elected in South Australia. In the last year alone, a combination of their donations and something they refer to as 'other contributions' added $330,000 to the state Labor Party.

As a former Independent in this house and now Independent in the federal parliament says, 'That sort of money buys a lot of control.' Certainly, that is self-evident. When one looks at the register of interests that has only just been released for all members of parliament, one sees in South Australia that the following members all list that they are a member of the SDA union: Atkinson, Bettison, Digance, Kenyon, Koutsantonis, Odenwalder, Picton, Ngo, Snelling, Vlahos and Malinauskas.

When one looks at a caucus of about 32, control of that, therefore, means about 17 votes. When the shoppies union controls 11, you therefore control the right faction of the caucus, and if you control the right faction of the caucus, as we have seen, you control the direction of the Labor government in South Australia. So, the shoppies union, with their 11 members—signed up and pledged to support—controls the right and therefore then also controls the direction of the government. As we have seen, when they decide to get rid of a premier, then that is the end of the premier.

We also see key staff appointments. The Premier's chief of staff, Mr Romeo, is very well connected to the shoppies union, and many other ministers—time does not permit—have shoppies union associations in terms of their staffing members. There are many within the Labor Party who are very concerned about what they see as the shoppies influence on the government. They believe it is cancerous in terms of both its arrogance and its influence. There is a strong belief that, as they have kneecapped one premier in the past, the shoppies union is now getting ready to kneecap another premier.

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