Union officials asked Queensland police for help but claim they ‘never heard back’
Queensland’s Police Commissioner failed to act on direct pleas for help from two of the state’s most senior union leaders amid escalating and threatening behaviour by CFMEU officials, an inquiry has heard.
Queensland’s Police Commissioner failed to act on direct pleas for help from two of the state’s most senior union leaders amid escalating and threatening behaviour by CFMEU officials, an inquiry has heard.
Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) general secretary Jacqueline King, taking the stand in the second week of the Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU, alleged former leaders of the militant union manipulated senior government officials.
She claimed they also instilled fear in fellow union heads to amass power.
Ms King said she and Australian Workers’ Union state secretary Stacey Schinnerl went “to the top” of Queensland Police in July 2024 after months of intimidation and increasing fears for personal safety.
There had also been an alarming warning from major contractor BMD that they could “no longer guarantee” Ms Schinnerl’s safety if she attended the hostile Centenary Bridge worksite.
Ms King said tension between the AWU and the CFMEU had intensified in the lead up to July 2024.
This included Ms Schinnerl, with her young child in tow, being berated by CFMEU operatives at a Labour Day march in 2023.
According to the Watson report into the CFMEU’s violent behaviour, Ms Schinnerl was subjected to slurs including “scab”, “grub”, “sell-out”, and “How do you f***ing like this?” One CFMEU member allegedly turned to her 13-year-old child and said: “How does it feel to know your Mum is a f***ing grub who sells out workers?”
“It’s a family day,” Ms King said. “It was extremely offensive.”
The pressure became so significant that Ms Schinnerl hired private security.
“I remember having the view that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something actually happened,” Ms King said.
“We might as well go to the top.”
Ms King told the inquiry that she and Ms Schinnerl secured a meeting with Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski and Deputy Commissioner Cheryl Scanlon, handing them documentation and footage provided by BMD allegedly showing violent behaviour by the CFMEU at the Centenary Bridge project.
The women spent around an hour briefing the state’s top police officers, the inquiry heard.
But after leaving the meeting, the pair allegedly “heard nothing back”.
“They said they would go away and have a look at the matters,” Ms King said.
“We formed a view they weren’t going to resolve the situation unless there was more evidence provided.”
Counsel assisting Mark Costello KC pressed Ms King on whether she believed police were reluctant to intervene in union-related incidents.
“I never would have had that view until recently,” she said.
“But I think that has been the case, rightly or wrongly, particularly around industrial matters in construction. There’s a cultural issue.”
She said police often deferred to a controversial memorandum of understanding that left worksite disputes to the workplace health and safety regulator, conceding that it was “supposedly common practice” for police to avoid industrial disputes on construction sites.
“It can get highly dangerous,” Ms King said.
“Employers play rough.”
Queensland Police was contacted for comment.
In a separate bombshell, Ms King detailed a meeting with BMD in which she claimed the contractor told her they had hired a private investigator who identified “Setka’s people” — alleged associates of former Victorian CFMEU powerbroker John Setka — infiltrating the Centenary Bridge site.
“They were deeply concerned that there were people from down south that had been brought up who were, quote, “Setka’s people” and that they were Croatians,” Ms King told the inquiry.
The long-running rift between the QCU and CFMEU hinged on a deep internal struggle over industrial relations policy, Ms King said.
This included the CFMEU’s campaign to expand industrial manslaughter provisions to apply to workers and bystanders — a proposal the QCU and former Labor government ultimately rejected.
Ms King also said former CFMEU leader Jade Ingham personally pressured her to help stall workplace health and safety legislation that would restrict CFMEU access to construction sites, the Inquiry heard.
Mr Ingham, she said, approached her after meeting Labor left powerbroker Gary “Blocker” Bullock and asked her to “put pressure on the government” to delay the bill.
“He said it was really important he had my support,” Ms King said.
Mr Ingham allegedly told Ms King that delaying the bill would help him run against then-secretary Michael Ravbar and return the CFMEU to Labor’s left faction.
“He had said to me was that if he was able to deliver this, he would be able to bring the CFMEU back as an affiliate of the QCU,” Ms King said.
Ms King told him it would be “highly inappropriate” and refused.
The Inquiry also heard of the CFMEU’s intense, sometimes aggressive pressure on senior public servants, particularly Office of Industrial Relations deputy director-general Kym Bancroft, who lasted less than a year in the job.
Ms Bancroft, Ms King said, became a “captured pawn,” bombarded with calls, texts and emails, some demanding responses within 24 hours and warning she would be “responsible for people dying on construction sites” if she failed to comply.
“I believe they had a view that they wanted to control her from early on,” she said.
Ruth O’Gorman KC representing Mr Ravbar and Colin Mandy SC representing Mr Ingham indicated their intent to cross examine Ms King on her evidence.
Ms King and Ms Schinnerl are scheduled for the witness box during Wednesday’s hearing.
Originally published as Union officials asked Queensland police for help but claim they ‘never heard back’
