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Eleven key coordinators, organisers and delegates should be immediately expelled from the CFMEU, the investigator whose report triggered Queensland’s inquiry into the scandal-plagued union has told the administrator.
The members who Geoffrey Watson SC said should be banished were revealed Wednesday for the first time when the investigator’s private report to CFMEU administrator Mark Irving KC was made public.
The release of Watson’s public report triggered the commission of inquiry that heard its second day of evidence.
Dean Mattas (second left) receiving the 2020 Delegate of the Year award at a CFMEU event with Michael Ravbar (third from left), Jade Ingham (second right) and Royce Kupsch (far right).
In the private report, Watson said organisers Dean Rielly, Dean Mattas, Brodie Wood, Hayden Turner-Davey, and coordinators Dylan Howard, Kurt Pauls should be “immediately terminated” by the union.
“In each of these instances, I have come to this view very strongly. In fact, the retention of Rielly, Mattas, Howard, Wood, and Turner-Davey, may present a work health and safety risk,” Watson said.
He said delegates Desmond Savage, Richie Atutolo, Steven Amies, and Rouel Harding should also be removed.
CFMEU official Kurt Pauls.Credit:
“Savage and Atutolo are dangerous,” Watson said in the report.
He said the administrator should consider removing James Fissendon as a delegate, but deemed his breaches to be of a lesser degree than Atutolo, Amies and Harding’s.
Watson said they should all be stripped of their union membership, as should state leaders Michael Ravbar and Jade Ingham.
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He said the memberships of Andrew Blakely, Blake Hynes, Mathew Clark, Beau Seiffert, Luke Gibson, Scott Vink, Te Aranui Albert, Royce Kupsch and Michael Davis should also be terminated.
He noted the difficulties that can arise from attempting to terminate union memberships and suggested the union could simply not renew their membership.
In an appendix to the report, Watson highlighted several of these men whose interviews he deemed deliberately unhelpful.
Howard, Pauls, Reilly, Mattas, Wood, and Turner-Davey were all name-checked, as were organiser Roland Cummins and coordinators Mathew Vonhoff and Dennis Mitchell.
In one example, Watson said Cummins said he had never seen or experienced violence on a CFMEU worksite, despite admitting to screaming, “you f***ing dog” repeatedly in the face of a work health and safety inspector.
Watson said both Mattas — an organiser who primarily deals with cranes — and Wood were both present at incidents at Brisbane Metro sites where CFMEU members clashed with Australian Workers Union members, but neither could recall violence at any site.
CFMEU and AWU members clashed at a metro site.Credit: Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU
“Upon being confronted with specific questions about an incident, Mattas immediately pleaded a defective memory which he put down to ‘footy’ injuries ‘as a kid’,” Watson wrote.
Watson’s evidence at the inquiry in Brisbane will wrap up today, with Irving expected to give evidence tomorrow.
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