As reported by this masthead last week, the Carroll Government has introduced the Associations Incorporation Reform Amendment Bill 2026 to the Victorian Parliament.
This Bill purports to have two equally related purposes.
The first is to stop terrorist and hate groups from being able to incorporate. Then, with this wedge, it can be used to forcibly wind up the Red Unions who represent 26,000 nurses, teachers, and doctors around the country.
As is so often true, the nitty-gritty of politics is best explained by the British TV satire, Yes Minister.
Minister Hacker asks Sir Humphrey Appleby why he wasn’t told crucial information before making an announcement. Sir Humphrey explains that there are some things it is better for a Minister not to know, and whether the Minister could have spoken with the same authority if he knew that those who were said to support the announcement actually opposed it.
The Victorian government alleges that this Bill is just ‘another tool in Labor’s fight against antisemitism and extremism, stopping neo-Nazi groups from pretending to be like any other community organisation’. In our view, nothing could be further from the truth.
The Australian Jewish Association (AJA), in a recent press release, explained that the Jewish community was not consulted about the Bill even though it purports to be for their benefit:
It’s really important that our community is consulted on changes which directly affect us. Typically, there is a one to two-month window for submissions, and the opportunity to contribute to public hearings. The pace this legislation has progressed at isn’t conducive with good-faith engagement, and concerns us deeply.
Not even Sir Humphrey could wriggle his way out of a claim that it was better that the Jewish community weren’t told or consulted about such a reform.
AJA President Robert Gregory expressed his dismay at the fact that the Jewish Community, in his view, is being used by Labor as a wedge for political gain. Gregory went on to call for the Bill to be categorically opposed, with many political parties, crossbench MPs, and key institutions already following suit.
Furthermore, recent research from the Red Union has found that such protections of the Jewish community already exist, and specifically in light of recent antisemitic attacks following the tragedy of October 7th.
The Commonwealth’s Criminal Code Act allows the Commonwealth to list terrorist and hate groups and the Victorian Crimes Act and Equal Opportunity Act criminalise vilification.
Were that not enough, the very Act that the Associations Incorporation Reform Amendment Bill 2026 would amend – the Associations Incorporation Reform Act 2012 – provides the Registrar with the power to wind up incorporated associations that exist for illegal purposes or where public interest justifies such action.
Perhaps Carroll and his government should return to the Tree of Knowledge to find their roots in the trade union movement and the protections of workers. Sadly, this sorry party, which is facing a likely election loss in November, is selling out workers to Trades Hall which they describe – in totality – as ‘Good’.
The government’s position is clear: competitive unionism – the idea that union monopolies are bad for workers – must be made illegal and that the Red Unions must be forcibly wound up so that 26,000 front line workers currently striking and negotiating EBAs are left without a voice.
The last time a union was wound up was in 1985 by the Hawke Government of the Builders Labourers Federation whose Secretary ‘transferred $2.06 million to Australian Fixed Trusts under the pseudonym Lester Normans’ in addition to being ‘led by the Communist Party of Australia and contributed to rising militancy in Australia’.
In 1985, the case for winding up the BLF was clear, but no crime has been alleged of the Red Union except that it poses a threat to Labor Party backers.
As workers are realising in Victoria and across the country, if you can’t fix the rotten monopoly unions, you can leave them. Red Union gives workers that choice. From this, the Carroll Government is realising that if monopoly unions aren’t representing workers, they can just outlaw the competition.
To paraphrase Monty Python, what has the Red Union ever done for workers apart from protecting reproductive leave rights, fighting for the freedom to choose, stopping nurses from having to pay to work, exposing migrant workers being forced to do unpaid work, exposing that patients are being medically sedated to fudge emergency room stats, and exposing systematic staffing shortages in hospitals.
If you want to join a real workers movement that actually represents workers, you can join your local association here.
