The workplace relations minister, Tony Burke, has asked the Australian federal police to investigate recent corruption allegations against the CFMEU in tandem with state police investigations and to “prosecute any criminal breaches”.
It is one of a number of pre-emptive responses to the allegations raised against the CFMEU in a Nine network investigation into the union, which focused on the Victorian branch.
Burke has turned to the industrial relations act to allow the general manager of the Fair Work Commission, Murray Furlong, to appoint independent administrators of the CFMEU while an investigation into the allegations is carried out.
“The number one job of any union is to look after its members,” Burke said.
“That’s the job of the union and the job of officials. The reported behaviour from the construction division of the CFMEU is the exact opposite of that obligation.
“It’s abhorrent. It’s intolerable. I said over the weekend that we would take action to address these issues and we are.”
After a meeting on Wednesday, the ACTU suspended the construction and general division of the CFMEU from the council of trade unions “until they are in a position to demonstrate to us that they are well functioning, clean union, free of any criminal elements”.
ACTU leaders Sally McManus and Michele O’Neil urged the CFMEU branch secretaries to cooperate with investigations and the appointment of an administrator after Queensland branch secretary Michael Ravbar launched an attack against the Albanese government for its decision to have the Fair Work Commission’s general manager appoint administrators.
“The appointment of administrators doesn’t take away the fact that workers will still be represented by a union. There will still be support for building workers on the job,” McManus said.
“We’ve had experience in rare circumstances of this in the past, and it’s actually been a very positive experience and outcome.”
McManus used the previous example of the Health Services Union (HSU) time under administration which she said saw the organisation “emerge through that stronger and better”.
“And that’s what we want to see for the CFMEU”.
Burke said earlier that Furlong was “the best person placed to take this action” and the government would back “any action that the general manager takes with respect to any division, any part of the construction division of the CFMEU”. His investigation would not just be limited to the Victorian division, he said.
Burke also pre-empted criticism that an administrator was being appointed, rather than the union being deregistered, which was the action former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke took against the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) in 1986.
“When Bob Hawke took the action of deregistration, that was the toughest action you could take to clean up an organisation,” Burke said, adding that the toughest action which could now be taken is to appoint an administrator.
“If we simply went down the deregistration path, we would have an organisation still capable of bargaining and doing the entire business model we’ve been seeing reported over recent days with no layer of regulation or additional oversight that applies to registered organisations,” Burke said.
“It would be a gift … and I have no intention of going down that path.”
If there were any legislative barriers to the action Furlong believed necessary, then Burke said the government would make it a priority to change the law, or create legislation, to enable the work.
“There can be no place for criminality or corruption in any part of the construction industry,” Burke said on Wednesday.
He has also asked the Fair Work Ombudsman to “undertake a targeted review of all enterprise agreements made by the Victorian branch of the construction division of the CFMEU that apply to Victorian big build projects” with a focus on uncovering any information on “coercive behaviour”.
“The government has no intention of taking any action which would put at risk the terms and conditions of employment of the workers who are covered by those agreements,” he said.
“This is not their fault. The government will also use its procurement powers to ensure that enterprise agreements used on government-funded projects are genuinely agreed and that workplaces are free from coercion and intimidation.”
State Labor branches have announced they will not take donations from the CFMEU, but Burke said a demand from the Coalition that the Labor party hand back moneys already donated was “one of the most astonishing and absurd ideas I’ve seen”.
“Are the Liberal party seriously suggesting that at this moment the action of the government should be that we hand money to the CFMEU? That’s what they are arguing, and I just find it, of all the things to suggest, the idea … that we should give money to the CFMEU is absurd.”
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, accused the government and the prime minister specifically of being “weak” in response to the allegations. In June 2019, shortly after becoming the leader of the Labor party, Albanese pushed for John Setka, then the Victorian secretary of the construction arm of the CFMEU to be expelled from Labor. Setka fought the expulsion, but dropped his court action against the move in October 2019.
Late last week, ahead of the airing of the Nine network investigation, Setka stepped down as branch secretary, a position he had held for 12 years.
Asked if the allegations had shamed the Labor party, Albanese said “they have shamed the people involved with it”.
“I expelled John Setka from the Labor party within weeks of becoming leader. I have no tolerance for the sort of behaviour that we’ve seen from John Setka and I have no tolerance for the behaviour that’s been exposed in recent days.”
