Employers Urge Government to Target CFMEU With Specific New Laws

Appointing an administrator with wide-ranging powers doesn’t go far enough, according to the Business Council of Australia.

Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) signs in Brisbane, Australia on July 16, 2024. AAP Image/Jono Searle

The Business Council of Australia (BCA) says proposed legislation to appoint an administrator to take over the embattled Construction, Forestry, Mining and Engineering Union (CFMEU) should include a range of additional measures aimed at compelling testimony and protecting witnesses.

The Council’s chief executive, Bran Black, said legislation appointing an administrator—due to be introduced to Parliament this week—should include “significant powers” to tackle criminality and misconduct at the union, including measures to “compel evidence from third parties and to protect whistleblowers who aren’t union members.”

It should also ban anyone with a criminal record or who has previously breached workplace laws from holding a position within the union.

“We are worried the government’s CFMEU legislation will not be strong enough to stamp out criminality and bad behaviour which is crippling worksites and the economy,” Black said.

The government is understood to have met with employer groups, including the BCA, to discuss the proposed legislation, and appears to have taken at least some of their concerns on board.

Penalties For Not Co-operating

The new laws, which Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt will introduce to Parliament, give him the power to appoint an administrator to the CFMEU’s construction and general division for three years and place obligations on officers, employees, and professional advisers to cooperate with any administrator, including providing all required information and documents.

Penalties will apply to those who do not comply or try to impair or undermine the administration process.

The CFMEU has yet to support the Fair Work Commission’s court application to appoint an external administrator despite the government imposing a Friday deadline for it to do so, prompting Senator Watt to say it was time to proceed with legislation.

“Everyone’s had a gut full of what they’ve been seeing from certain parts of this union for a long time,” Senator Watt told Sky News on Sunday.

He said the aim was to “get to the core” of the problems deep within the union’s construction division and the industry more broadly.

“For every bribe that has allegedly been made to an official, there’s a person who’s paid that bribe,” Watt said.

Union Warns Labor It Will Never Be Forgiven

He urged the Coalition and the Greens to support the legislation, but Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather said on Sunday that his party had not seen it and would wait to comment further.

The union has lashed out at the government over what it describes as one of Australia’s most extensive union-busting campaigns.

CFMEU Queensland and Northern Territory branch secretary Michael Ravbar warned the union’s members would never forgive Labor’s “unprecedented act of political treachery” and labelled Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Senator Watt, and ACTU secretary Sally McManus as “Labor sellouts.”

“Whether they realise it or not, the Labor Party is destroying its own credibility among its working-class base,” he said.

AAP contributed to this report.