I contend the state ought to do its thing and provide legal rights for all couples who want to be joined together for life. The church should bless unions that it sees fit to bless and they should be called marriages.

I was for civil unions and believed strongly that the flow of benefits and protections that would be provided in a civil union for same-sex couples the decisions that have to be made when health hardships are faced when economic hardships are faced I wanted all of those protections. I never strayed from them.

They said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics to take on public-sector unions and to reform a pension and health benefits system that was headed to bankruptcy. But with bipartisan leadership we saved taxpayers $132 billion dollars over 30 years and saved retirees their pensions. We did it.

Now I learned soon enough that among the three two don't trust the third one - the third one is the government. Both industry and unions feel the government is a talking organization and a spending organization.

The time has come to tell the truth about the corruption of the government employee unions in this country.

When I go back to family reunions everybody goes 'Hey cousin! Hey Auntie!' And I'm like 'Okay I don't know you I have no idea who you are.' I am auntie and cousin for so many and even the ones in prison call me collect. And I'll be like 'Which of my family members are giving you this phone number?'

We will have bigger bureaucracies bigger labor unions and bigger state-run corporations. It will be harder to be an entrepreneur because of punitive taxes and regulations. The rewards of success will be expropriated for the sake of attaining greater income equality.

My view is that you still in order to win from the Labour perspective have to have a strong alliance with business as well as the unions. You have got to be very much in the centre ground on things like public sector reform.

I propose that the government should get out of the business of marrying people and instead only give legal status to civil unions.

The unions say 'last hired - first fired ' we say hire and fire based on merit. We want the best and brightest in the classroom.