Home Property Australia Chief Executive | Work site reforms needed

Chief Executive | Work site reforms needed

  • July 17, 2024
  • by Mike Zorbas
An investigation has uncovered the union’s alleged corruption and links to organised crime figures

Collective organisation of labour is done well by many unions.  

Both within the limits and the spirit of the law. 

The Construction Forestry Maritime and Energy Union (CFMEU) bends and breaks both.  

Rolling tens of millions of dollars worth of court penalties over the past few decades do not lie.  

Take it from a former member. 

The expression that evil flourishes when good people do nothing goes a fair bit of the way explaining the mess the CFMEU construction division is in today… Why do these people turn a blind eye? For some, it’s out of physical fear. John Sutton 16 July 2024, The Age 

The recent Nine investigations into union corruption show we need a national cop on the beat for worksites with a similar remit to the Australian Building and Construction Commission.  

Not with unlimited freedom from judicial review. Not with greater power than any court in the land. Not run by zealots.  

But make no mistake. This is about much more than just the breaking of black letter law. 

We need a national body with the right powers and accountability to fairly police the threat-filled no-go zone of Australian life – where police often fail to intervene – engagement with the CFMEU on work sites. 

That daily no-go zone is created by the court documented routine threatening behaviour of many representatives of the CFMEU toward many law-abiding organisations, individuals and businesses who have little choice but to interact with them. 

If anything is to change parliamentarians need to ensure the CFMEU signs up to the norms that cover all Australians.  

Parliamentarians need to ask the CFMEU to explicitly repudiate a culture of violence and unsafe coercive control towards organisations and individuals with whom they disagree. 

In the meantime we need the return of a cop on the beat with teeth to make work sites across the nation free of intimidation. No other body can consistently hold the CFMEU to the same standards as the rest of us.