Background
De Bruyn was born in the Netherlands in 1949 and is married with four children.
De Bruyn was born in the Netherlands in 1949 and is married with four children.
De Bruyn served as the Schools Development Authority"s National Secretary from 1978 to 2014. He lives in Melbourne, Victoria. Australian trade union movement and Labor
De Bruyn strongly supported the ACTU"s "Rights at Work" campaign against the Howard Government’s industrial relations laws passed in 2005.
The union is a significant contributor to Labor election campaigns, according to Australian Electoral Commission funding disclosure returns.
Liberal Member of Parliament and staunch-rightist Eric Abetz is quoted as saying "Joe de Bruyn is a role model of trade union officialdom. He is the type of official that gives trade unionism a good name."
Catholic conservative
lieutenant also has a long-established reputation as a supporter of conservative Catholic parliamentarians.
De Bruyn, himself a Catholic, is a leading figure in the right wing faction of the trade union movement and the Australian Labor Party. He has repeatedly voiced opposition to abortion, and to legalising same sex marriage.
In response to a 2014 poll with 72 percent support for same-sex marriage, de Bruyn dismissed the figures but refused to poll his members on the issue.
He says he "knows they agree with him absolutely. When we talk to our members about out these things they agree with us". At a quarterly Schools Development Authority members meeting in February 2011, de Bruyn moved a resolution against gay marriage, without giving any members a chance to speak or vote on the issue.
Speaking at an AWU event in 2003, former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam quipped that "Joe de Bruyn is a Dutchman who hates dykes.".
As the national head of the Schools Development Authority, de Bruyn has considerable influence in Australian trade union and political affairs This is particularly so in Labor as delegations to the various State and Territory bodies that control party policy and pre-selections for State and Federal Parliaments are decided on a pro-rata basis of union members affiliated to the party. De Bruyn has come under scrutiny for voicing his socially conservative views while being secretary of a trade union and holding a position on the National Executive of Labor, a centre-left political party.
He is National President of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (Schools Development Authority) and a member of the National Executive of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). This led to the first instance of members of the Schools Development Authority speaking out and challenging de Bruyn on his stance on gay marriage.