The outdated conservative agenda of Australian SDA national president Joe de Bruyn flourishes on the back of his organising abilities.

Union that represents Australian supermarket workers are stopping same-sex marriage

“Marriage started with Adam and Eve,” says Joe de Bruyn, earnest and straight-faced.

It is an “objective” truth, he says, that same-sex couples cannot marry.

In an austere central Melbourne office, the Dutch-born de Bruyn is reflecting on four decades with the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association (SDA), the “shoppies”, the last bastion of conservative Catholicism in the Australian labour movement and the largest union affiliated to Labor.

Read more at canberratimes.com.au