The deregistration and dismemberment of the Builders Labourers’ Federation (BLF), which
was executed by Federal and State Labor Governments, was one of the most significant
events in Australian industrial relations history. The union and its general secretary, Norm
Gallagher, continue to excite passionate debate whenever their names are invoked. Portrayed
as the ugly face of trade unionism, Gallagher and the BLF provided national and state Labor
Party reformers with a timely mechanism through which they could both assert their
dominance over the Party and broaden its electoral appeal. This thesis incorporates BLF
activities into the larger story of Labor Party transmutation that occurred between the 1960s
and 1980s. By examining these shifts in the Labor Party through the prisms of Gallagher and
the BLF, we can better understand Labor’s decision to deregister and ultimately destroy the
union. The thesis argues that the trajectories taken by the BLF and the ALP were sufficiently
divergent that conflict was inevitable. Drawing on a range of key sources, this thesis provides
a new assessment of BLF deregistration, the schisms it opened up within both the Labor Party
and Conservative interests, and the way in which destruction of a union represented a critical
moment in Australian political and industrial history.