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The news
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie has urged Queenslanders to “prepare to come forward with their stories” about the CFMEU while remaining coy about whether the state would launch a new royal commission-style probe into the union.
The state’s Industrial Relations Minister made the comments at a media conference on Thursday where two industry figures who spoke alongside Bleijie urged the government to launch such an inquiry to dive deeper into the union’s “culture of violence” detailed in a report this week.
National Association of Women in Construction Queensland chapter president Emma McCaughey and Queensland Major Contractors Association chief executive Andrew Chapman, second from right, fronting media with government ministers on Friday.Credit: Matt Dennien
“I was asked that yesterday, and I will say today, I’m not ruling anything in or out,” Bleijie said, again accusing former Labor ministers of “enabling” the union and enacting favourable laws the LNP was now combing over with an eye to change.
Why it matters
The 45-page report, published online on Wednesday evening with some redacted names also being sought by Bleijie, conveys the findings of a three-month investigation that its author, barrister Geoffrey Watson SC, said might only scratch the surface of violence in the union.
Watson’s investigation was commissioned by CFMEU administrator Mark Irving KC in February, after the federal-government initiated administration sacked dozens of officials nationwide following revelations of corruption and bikie links against figures in Victoria and NSW.
The ousted Queensland leadership dismissed the report’s key finding the union was misogynistic, violent and abusive as “offensive and untrue”, while the state’s peak union body urged the pair to accept and apologise for their actions while allowing the union to “better itself for its members”.
Bleijie, a former Newman government attorney-general, has acted quickly since the October state election to wind back some workplace access rights and blame union-friendly procurement policies for high construction costs.
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What they said
Without saying where they should go, Bleijie urged Queenslanders to “prepare to come forward with their stories” about the union.
“Queenslanders can be confident to come forward, because they have a government that will protect them,” he said, again accusing former Labor ministers of “enabling” the union and passing favourable laws the LNP was now combing over with an eye to change.
Appearing with Bleijie, National Association of Women in Construction state chapter president Emma McCaughey said a royal commission, or commission of inquiry at the state level, was needed to provide safety and support for women to come forward with their stories.
Queensland Major Contractors Association chief executive Andrew Chapman agreed that a further inquiry was needed to “support the administrator in the action he takes to address the culture in the CFMEU”.
Another perspective
On Thursday, Queensland Council of Unions general secretary Jacqueline King disagreed that further inquiries were needed.
“I would support the actions that have been outlined in the report, which are to reform the branch,” King said.
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