What Drove a Former Union Leader to Give an Abortion Speech That Led to a Student Walkout?

When former union leader Joe De Bruyn addressed a graduation ceremony at the Australian Catholic University (ACU) on Oct. 21, he assumed he was in a suitable environment to discuss his beliefs.
It was after all, a Catholic institution.
De Bruyn, the former national secretary of the conservative Shop, Distributive, and Allied Employees Association (SDA), was the recipient of an honorary degree for his contributions to workers’ rights and social welfare.
De Bruyn spoke to The Epoch Times and said his speech was aimed at sharing his experiences with students, as well as the importance of standing by their beliefs.
“You are also going to find in your professional lives and personal lives that issues will come up which might be challenging, and you should deal with them in accordance with your beliefs and not worry that this is going to affect your professional career if you happen to be out of line with the majority,” he said.
“My message to the students was—to encourage them—to stick to their views, rather than to be swayed by majority opinion.”
De Bruyn’s speech covered his opposition to abortion, same sex marriage, and IVF for single families, as well as his time in the Labor Party’s National Executive as leader of the SDA—part of Labor’s right.
“Mr. De Bruyn’s remarks at the ceremony were delivered in a personal capacity,” the statement read.
“While his views may not be shared by many of our staff and students, as a university, we encourage the respectful exchange of ideas that represent the wide spectrum of our diverse community,” the statement read.
Footage of the venue shared online showed most of the attendees, including parents, had left, as well as staff.
Students, such as Charlie Panteli, said he wanted the university to denounce the anti-abortion comments.
“There are many women in society who are having abortions, and to say to them the cold, hard truth that: ‘This is the killing of human life, the ending of human life, and it cannot be justified,’ is a confronting thing,” De Bruyn said.
The SDA’s former leader also pointed to recent efforts to stop late term abortions on near-full grown babies.
“There was the very sort of graphic testimony by a midwife [in Queensland] who confirmed that it did happen—that children were born alive after [failed abortion attempts], and they were often simply taken away … and left to die.”
“In fact, Friedan, under her maiden name Betty Goldstein, had been a radical socialist activist from her college years up to the 1950s. While at the University of California–Berkeley, Friedan was a member of the Young Communist League and even requested, twice, to join the Communist Party USA.”
In fact, De Bruyn said one of the first things Vladimir Lenin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of Russia did in 1917 was to allow abortion on demand.
“So it was something that came as part of that first Marxist regime, and I think Joseph Stalin [later] changed the policy because it led to a dearth of births, and it didn’t suit him in a country where the birth rate was already quite low,” De Bruyn said.
“It was the communists that introduced it, and at that time, the prevailing laws in countries in the West would all have been against abortion.”
Meanwhile, the Australian Labor Party adopted the policy in the 1980s, with those on the left supporting it, and those on the right opposed.
“I think that dividing line would be different today, because the so-called ”right wing” of the Labor Party today is supportive of abortion as well.
“Abortion has become so established within our society that there are very few people really who oppose to it, and those who are oppose it are mostly people of some religious persuasion,” De Bruyn said.
The union leader said he could see that slide continue into the near future.
“So people who don’t like that, are going to have to keep on putting forward their point of view. And my graduation speech two days ago is an example of an effort to try and do that.”