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7.36am BST
The Community and Public Sector Union has called for the “insanity to end” in a statement condemning the “violent behaviour from some extremists” at the protests today and yesterday.
In a statement, the CPSU says efforts to vaccine construction workers is being “undermined” by the actions of the protesters:
Their efforts are being undermined by the thoughtless and thuggish behaviour of extremist individuals.
Many of whom are not union members and many of whom have actively sought to undermines and destroy the work of unions for many years.
7.15am BST
So, CFMEU boss Dave Noonan is in a bit of a back and forth with the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas about the makeup of today’s protest.
Noonan is insistent that these protests are an attempt to “co-opt” the union, that a majority of the attendees are “anti-vaccination extremists” and “far right and neo-Nazi groups”.
There are a handful but I think if you look on the social media, you will see there is a very coordinated social media campaign. Some say it originates out of Germany where there are – there is some coordination of global right-wing groups.
Yesterday, we had a range of neo-Nazi groups that were mingling in that crowd and, frankly, anyone who says that there is a large number of construction or a majority of construction workers in it that, they have got it wrong.
If you are wearing a $5 high-vis that you bought at the supermarket, I mean, if you have been in construction all of your life, most of your adult life, which I have, you know.
There is a very, very significant number of people that aren’t construction workers. It was an orchestrated attack on the union yesterday.
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