Hundreds of students, as well as some lecturers, walked out of a graduation ceremony in Australia as a former trade union leader took aim at gay marriage and abortion rights during his keynote speech.

Joseph de Bruyn, the former national president of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, gave a speech at Australian Catholic University’s (ACU) graduation ceremony in Melbourne on Monday (21 October), where he said abortion was the “single biggest killer of human beings” and same-sex marriage went against “every society on Earth”.

De Bruyn, who was there to receive an honorary doctorate, told education and arts, law and commerce graduates that marriage was a union between a man and a woman and was “instituted by God at the origin of humanity in the Garden of Eden, as the book of Genesis in the Bible tells us”, adding: “My experience is that many Catholics cave in to peer pressure. They think their professional lives will be harmed if they promote the teachings of the Church.”

He also said that for “several decades [he had] been involved in opposing abortion, the deliberate killing of unborn human beings”, going on to claim: “Over 80,000 unborn children are killed by abortion in Australia each year. Worldwide, the estimated number is 42 million per annum.

Students, staff and guests walkout during Australian Catholic University graduation speech pic.twitter.com/UZrWIWdlmr

— Clown Down Under

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