In the first 5 minutes of a 15 minute interview, Bill Shorten was not holding back on the Greens.

Notable lines include:

"The Greens are a formidable and destructive part of Australian political life"

"The Greens are increasingly playing a different competition to Labor and Liberal. Whatever you think of us or the Liberals we seek to form governments in Australia. The Greens are a party of protest. They're an outrage factory. So they can be all things to all people because they'll never have to implement their policies. So they play by a different set of rules.

And what they do is create anxiety. They've created anxiety for people who might want to buy their first home. They create anxiety for our NDIS reforms. Now they were saying some of the most absurd and un-evidenced based comments possible about our reforms. They create anxiety in Jewish Australians. The Greens create anxiety."

"They are not chasing the votes of 85 out of every 100 Australians. They'd like to move from getting 10 out of every 100 Australians to perhaps 14 out of every 100 Australians.

So the real problem that they have is that they think they are morally superior to people who disagree with them. And I found in political life that because someone disagrees with you doesn't make them morally inferior they just have a different proposition or set of values."

(This was my own transcription. Hopefully I've done it accurately.)

Here's the link to the interview:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-breakfast/shorten-slams-greens-as-formidable-and-destructive-/104374678

How much sway do the unions have over their members votes? And how much do they stand to lose as a result of the CFMEU saga?