The Australian labour movement has its origins in the early 19th century and includes both trade unions and political activity. At its broadest, the movement can be defined as encompassing the industrial wing, the unions in Australia, and the political wing, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and minor parties.
Almost all unions in Australia are affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). These unions are commonly the product of a significant process of amalgamation undertaken in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Read more about Australian Labour Movement: Early History, Growth of The Trade and Industrial Unions, Governments, The Labour Movement and World War I, The Labour Movement in The 1920s, Depression and Attacks On Unions, Second World War and After, Industrial Relations Changes in 2005
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“The Australian mind, I can state with authority, is easily boggled.”
—Charles Osborne (b. 1927)
“Indeed, I thought, slipping the silver into my purse ... what a change of temper a fixed income will bring about. No force in the world can take from me my five hundred pounds. Food, house and clothing are mine for ever. Therefore not merely do effort and labour cease, but also hatred and bitterness. I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“When delicate and feeling souls are separated, there is not a feature in the sky, not a movement of the elements, not an aspiration of the breeze, but hints some cause for a lover’s apprehension.”
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816)