Victorian Labor Premier Ben Carroll has created a royal commission into the construction industry in a bid to save his government from electoral wipe-out in the election on 28 November.
He has bowed to demands for this inquiry by the Victorian ruling class, the Liberal Party and their media mouthpieces for many months.
But “everyone knows” the $50 million-plus commission is about further demonising the Construction and General Division of the CFMEU.
In late September, the media reported that the commission, headed by Justice Chris Kourakis, had already held “secret hearings” nominally to protect “sensitive information”.
This is a bad portent of how the Commission will run. Smear, innuendo and mudslinging at the CFMEU will be the order of the day. With media headlines to follow.
It will be an orchestrated witch-hunt of the union rather than a fact-finding mission about the brutal, privately-owned construction industry.
The recent Queensland royal commission revealed that it was a major contractor who brought in interstate bikies to intimidate members of the CFMEU.
While the Victorian royal commission is supposed to be about the recent era, a legal “associate to the Commissioner”, Peter Tantalos, said that since at least 1980 there had been “persistent allegations of consistent and criminal conduct in connection with major public and civil infrastructure construction projects across Australia”.
Chris Carr SC, the senior lawyer of the commission’s legal team, gave the game away when he said that the CFMEU had a track record of “ostentatiously” defying the law.
Yes, these are industrial laws, overseen by the anti-union Fair Work Commission.
From 1980, there have been five other federal and state royal commissions. They have all been fishing expeditions, between them leading to only three charges against officials from the CFMEU or its predecessor, the Builder Labourers Federation (BLF). Bosses were treated differently.
After a commission final report in 1982, the John Cain Victorian Labor government oversaw the four builders who paid bribes to the Victorian BLF’s Norm Gallagher getting a slap on their wrists. They received $5000 good behaviour bonds. Meanwhile Gallagher got 18 months’ jail.
Self-inflicted wounds
Since July, the government-appointed Administrator, Michael Crosby, and his lackey, Assistant Administrator Matt McGowan, have created a series of self-inflicted wounds that are part of the logic of Admin.
The way they have dealt with concerns among NSW and Victorian delegates that Admin doesn’t conduct itself like a real union leadership has led to walkouts in both states.
In NSW, Crosby attended the August delegates’ meeting to prop up his NSW Branch Executive Officer, Karma Lord. Delegates wanted to know if the “three-year clause” for the removal of Admin would be activated by Crosby in August 2027.
Crosby “explained” that Admin would last for five years, at a minimum. The Saturday Paper wrote that “delegates walked out … finishing their meeting in a nearby park without Crosby”.
Crosby had already threatened Victorian delegates that the CFMEU “will stay in administration indefinitely.”
In Victoria, McGowan refused to address delegates’ complaints about Victoria Police harassment of five CFMEU organisers raided at 3am in late August.
McGowan said the union would not be organising any protest rallies over the raids. This led to a walkout by delegates before the end of official business, with Lisa Zanatta, the branch executive officer, trying and failing to wrangle angry delegates back into the meeting.
While Admin is a little battered and bruised in the past few months because they aren’t seen by the media “to be in control”, it is still in control.
To beat Admin we need delegates in both branches to mobilise the rank and file against it.
Concerns over declining safety standards and the need for a fight over the next EBA for Victoria, NSW and Queensland due in mid-2027 mean there will be plenty of opportunities to do so.
By Tom Orsag
