Neither the Albanese government nor the ACTU will be overly upset at being publicly reviled by the CFMEU’s ousted executives, with terms like “Albonazi”, “sellout” and “traitor” being bandied around. Being attacked by a union associated with thuggery, bikies, corruption and domestic violence — despite the efforts of some commentators to downplay those — won’t keep Labor MPs awake at night. Moreover, they’ll undermine Peter Dutton’s claims that Labor is soft on the CFMEU. He’s not the one being compared to Hitler on protest placards. Indeed, with CFMEU leaders vowing the “absolute destruction” of the ALP, presumably it’s a Dutton prime ministership they want after the next election.
But the risk for Labor is that the slew of allegations of corruption and criminal infiltration of the CFMEU end up going the same way as so many others have.
After all, the Abbott government launched an entire royal commission, led by Dyson Heydon at a cost of $46 million, directed at the trade union movement in an effort to damage both unions and then Labor leader Bill Shorten.
But over and over again, the prosecutions that flowed from the royal commission either fell in a heap, were abandoned, or led to not guilty verdicts. That includes the spectacular implosion at the committal hearing stage of the prosecution of John Setka and former colleague Shaun Reardon for blackmail, when it was discovered that a Boral executive’s claims of being threatened by the pair had been invented a year after the meeting.
The restored Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) didn’t have much more luck. Labor shuttered the ABCC when it returned to power, with its caseload transferred to the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), which ditched nearly one-third of the ABCC cases.
While the Financial Review was suggesting the FWO was soft on the CFMEU, the ABCC itself had failed repeatedly in prosecutions of the union. Its cases were dismissed by courts, cartel charges were withdrawn by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, and the ABCC lost cases like a ridiculous prosecution over a toilet that cost half a million dollars and was knocked off by the High Court.
Either the CFMEU has extraordinarily good fortune in the courts, or regulators — and the media — find it easy to make allegations of misconduct by union officials but struggle to produce testable evidence. That the main witnesses against the CFMEU tend to be drawn from property developers and building firms and are thus every bit as likely to be engaged in misconduct doesn’t help — as shown by examples of the ABCC relying on witnesses whose evidence was demolished by CCTV footage.
More of the same from the latest round of allegations about the CFMEU will give credence to its insistence it’s the victim of ideological regulators determined to stop its aggressive representation of workers’ rights in a dangerous and corrupt industry.
As for the CFMEU, after getting some headlines with a day of protest, what next? One sacked union official, Denis McNamara, yesterday proposed shutting the construction industry, which would deliver to the federal government what the pilots’ strike delivered the Hawke government in 1989 — the opportunity, backed by strong public support, to declare war on a union.
McNamara — he of the “Albonazi” tag — also reportedly called for changes to “the whole capitalist system”. Problem is, the CFMEU is deeply enmeshed into the heart of the capitalist system in Australia via Cbus and its $94 billion in construction workers’ retirement savings (and media workers, after the 2022 merger of MEAA Super with Cbus). Cbus investments are spread right through the economy, including the construction sector that McNamara wants to shut down. If the CFMEU really wants to change capitalism, it could withdraw from Cbus and start a new super fund offering investment in whatever it thinks will change capitalism.
I wonder how many CFMEU members would switch their money over…
What should Labor do about the CFMEU? What can it do? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
