Sally McManus shook up the union movement. The question now is what she leaves behind

July 27, 2026 — 8:01pm

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Sally McManus arrived at the ACTU promising to shake things up. Nearly a decade later, she leaves having done exactly that – even if the movement remains smaller and confronting the same existential questions.

Her tenure will divide opinion because it contains two contradictory truths.

She was arguably the most politically effective ACTU secretary since Bill Kelty, overseeing a period in which organised labour enjoyed unfettered access to a federal government.

Yet she was unable to reverse the decades-long decline in union membership challenging the movement’s relevance.

McManus announced herself with a line that horrified conservatives and gave Labor heartburn. Asked in her first major television interview in 2017 whether workers should obey laws governing industrial action, she replied that she had no problem with breaking laws that were bad.

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“I believe in the rule of law when the law is fair and the law is right,” she told ABC’s 7.30. “But when it’s unjust I don’t think there’s a problem with breaking it.”

The comments detonated in Canberra, with Coalition ministers accusing her of encouraging lawlessness, while Labor scrambled. Within the union movement, McManus became an overnight hero.

It set the........

© Brisbane Times