The focus will again be on the Labour Party this week, after the Herald on Sunday exposed the party’s links to organised trade unions.

Writing in the newspaper, former ACT Party MP Rodney Hide revealed that trade unions were behind much of the party’s activities.

It appears that these sinister voluntary and democratic worker organisations have even donated money to the party.

And this blog can exclusively reveal that trade unions and others within the labour movement were behind the formation of the Labour Party almost 100 years ago.

The discovery that a party formed to represent the interests of workers may in fact be affiliated with other worker organisations, must raise serious questions about who calls the shots within Labour.

Despite attempts by successive National governments to stamp out the evil of unionism, small pockets of resistance continue to hold out. The insistence of unions on fighting for the rights of low-paid workers is a disgrace and a scandal. Why do we allow these organisations to exist? Why haven’t they been abolished?

Trade unions have done incalculable damage to this country over the years. They are an impediment to economic progress, and a handbrake on growth. How can we ever hope to become a productive high-wage economy, unless we allow employers to pay slave wages?

Far too many good businesses have been destroyed because of militant unionism. The unions encourage workers to make unreasonable demands on bosses, which is why so many factory workers drive to work in late model European sports cars; leaving hard-working employers destitute, unable to even afford food, and forced to eat their own children just to end the suffering of those poor sweet little creatures.

Who is thinking of the children? Isn’t it time we put a stop to the scourge of unionism? Shouldn’t we leave the funding of our political parties to hardworking richlisters and wealthy crackpots?

Labour’s leader David Cunliffe has not denied the involvement of unions within the party, nor has he ruled out working with unions in the future. That’s just not good enough.

It’s time for the Labour Party to cut all ties with organised labour in order to achieve its true potential. Only by purging itself completely of the union menace can Labour become a party that doesn’t stand for very much.