How the CFMEU turned a workplace safety regulator into a ‘captured pawn’

Queensland’s CFMEU sought to control the workplace health and safety regulator and then launched a campaign against its boss after she attempted to walk back the union’s access, the state inquiry into the union and construction sector has heard.

Queensland Council of Unions general secretary Jacqueline King also revealed a proposition from ousted senior official Jade Ingham to help him shore up support to unseat former state secretary Michael Ravbar.

The powerful inquiry headed by Stuart Wood was launched by the Crisafulli government following reporting by this masthead and 60 Minutes into criminality, corruption and misconduct in the CFMEU and construction industry nationwide.

King has revealed new details about the CFMEU’s bid to control workplace laws in Queensland.Credit: News Corp Australia

An initial three-day block of hearings in late November heard evidence from CFMEU administrator Mark Irving and his chief investigator Geoffrey Watson about the union’s use of violence and intimidation to push the rival Australian Workers Union off civil construction sites.

The inquiry also heard of Ravbar and Ingham’s efforts to create a state-based “fiefdom” under control they exerted until as recently as mid-year.

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Under questioning from counsel assisting Mark Costello, King told the inquiry on Tuesday she had known Ravbar for decades.

But the leader of the peak body for unions said she had not spoken to Ravbar since at least 2018 after which she took up a senior role at the QCU and was asked to reach out to the head of the by then-disaffiliated CFMEU who “never returned my phone call”.

Ravbar had not been a fan of a former QCU boss, Ros McLennan, and had previously sought to “lead another posse” of unions to withdraw from the peak body to force McLennan’s resignation and “put someone in that he could control”, King said.

This attempt to control did not end there. King said Ravbar sought to have other union officials disrupt broader union movement meetings and the Workplace Health and Safety Board – made “completely dysfunctional” through the presence of former CFMEU state president Royce Kupsch.

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King told the inquiry she also believed the CFMEU set out to “control” the deputy director-general of the state’s short-lived workplace health and safety regulator, Kym Bancroft, who began the role in 2022 and had wanted to develop a good relationship with the union.

After this, Bancroft attended meetings at the CFMEU office multiple times a week which was “pretty unheard of”, King said.

A CFMEU official, Kurt Pauls, was at one stage also placed on a selection panel to appoint the executive director of compliance services which resulted in the panel being unable to make a decision and the role being readvertised.

“She became almost a captured pawn,” King said of Bancroft. The former regulator then “copped a lot of resistance” after deciding to pull back, with those attempts met with a campaign from the union which saw her contacted directly demanding she respond personally to all compliance matters. Bancroft left the role in early 2023.

Early last year, as a bill before Queensland parliament sought to close loopholes allowing CFMEU officials without right of entry permits to access workplaces, King then told of her one and only major interaction with Ingham.

It was International Women’s Day and King had a series of missed calls from an unknown number and ultimately a message revealing the caller to be Ingham. He was seeking an urgent meeting about the bill.

The pair met later that day after Ingham had visited United Workers Union boss Gary Bullock to discuss “party matters”. King said Ingham demanded she help him push for a delay to the bill.

Ingham said this would give him “kudos” with organisers to help him run against Ravbar for the role of secretary in upcoming union elections, bring the CFMEU back in as a QCU affiliate and into Labor’s Left faction.

If she refused, Ingham said Ravbar would “go nuclear” when he returned from leave the following week with a campaign against the government and likely broader union movement. King said her rejection of the proposal shocked Ingham.

The bill eventually passed, and King said she believed this triggered a period of escalated industrial action from the CFMEU on the Cross River Rail and Centenary Bridge upgrade projects.

The inquiry will resume on Wednesday, with evidence expected from AWU state secretary Stacey Schinnerl.

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