Inside Politics: will the CFMEU scandal derail the government's agenda?

The Morning Edition

Unions and Labor are intertwined. The oldest Labor Party in the world traces its roots to the shearers strike of the 1890s.

At that time, powerless workers decided to band together to create a political party and take on big business.

The aims of unions underpins a lot of what Labor does when it holds power. Many of its MPs worked for unions. But what happens when one misbehaves? Misbehaves badly.

There have long been suggestions and reports of bully-boy tactics in the rough world that is the building industry. But reports in The Age and SMH revealed so much more than the odd bad apple.

Labor is already sagging in the polls. A new union scandal now threatens to derail the government’s winter agenda and opens it up to the long-standing charge of being too close to trade unions.

Today, chief political correspondent David Crowe and political reporter Angus Thompson join Paul Sakkal to discuss the CFMEU scandal and what it means for the government.

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