The Albanese government’s plan to appoint an independent administrator to take control of the CFMEU will not be enough to clean up the embattled union’s “toxic elements”, the independent MP Zoe Daniel says, suggesting the industry may need a new watchdog.
The leftwing union has been under fire after Channel Nine and its mastheads began publishing allegations of organised crime links within the construction branch in Victoria.
The workplace relations minister, Tony Burke, announced on Wednesday he would empower the Fair Work Commission to appoint independent administrators to CFMEU branches. He flagged that new legislation could be introduced as a priority at the next sitting of parliament if the union put up a legal fight.
Burke also said he had asked the AFP to investigate the allegations in tandem with state police.
Daniel, the journalist turned teal MP, said a broader approach was necessary to deal with the issue and that could include the creation of a new building union watchdog with teeth to respond to any misconduct.
“The toxic elements of the CFMEU absolutely have to be cleaned out. And so maybe that’s an administrator and a police investigation … and then a form of watchdog as well,” Daniel told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.
“Everyone has known to some degree that it has been going on, and it does feel like it has been convenient to turn a blind eye and it is now Labor’s problem. There’s risk and they have to resolve this.”
The Australian Building and Construction Commission was established in 2016 under the former Coalition government and abolished in early 2023 under Labor.
Daniel, who voted in favour of its abolishment as part of an omnibus bill, said it had been so heavily politicised by the Coalition it was rendered ineffective.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, described Labor’s move to appoint an independent administrator as the “weakest possible path” and pledged to introduce a bill to parliament to restore the ABCC in the next sitting period.
On Sunday, the assistant climate change minister, Jenny McAllister, said it was “pretty difficult to take lectures” from Dutton given the ABCC had done little about the allegations during its seven years in operation.
When asked about Dutton’s 2019 claim that outlawed motorcycle gangs had “their fangs” in the CFMEU, McAllister asked why something hadn’t been done about it then.
“If he knew about it, why didn’t he do something about it? We are not talking about this issue. We are acting on it,” she told Sky News’ Sunday Agenda.
The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, said Albanese should deregister the union, bring back the ABCC and hand back any political donations the CFMEU had given to Labor.
“This organisation is clearly rotten to the core,” he said on Sky News.
On Thursday, the ALP federal executive announced it was suspending the affiliation rights of the Victorian, NSW, Tasmanian and South Australian branches of the CFMEU’s construction division.
The federal executive won’t take any fees from the CFMEU during this time and delegates will not be allowed to vote.
McAllister said: “We don’t want them to be involved in our party until it is clear that there are no criminal elements at all involved.”
“That’s the right thing to do.”
Guardian Australia contacted the CFMEU’s national branch for a response.
Earlier in the week, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, announced he had asked for the union’s affiliation with the state Labor party to be immediately suspended and donations and fees to be stopped.
He also said the union’s state boss, Darren Greenfield, should step down while he faces charges of bribery.
In response, the union wrote to Minns this week threatening to release a list of government MPs, some of which are now ministers, and senior public servants who had previously met with Greenfield.
Acting opposition leader, Damien Tudehope, said the premier should immediately refer the letter to the state’s independent corruption watchdog and disclose the terms of the meetings with the CMFEU before the last election.
A spokesperson for Minns on Sunday confirmed that ministers in the current and former governments had met with the union in recent years and said “the government will not resile from the actions it has taken”.
