When news broke of corruption and connections to organised crime and bikies within its ranks last year, the CFMEU quickly started learning who its true friends were. It was a short list.

It didn’t include Anthony Albanese and then-industrial relations minister Murray Watt, for example, who put the union into administration. So many generous donations to Labor for nothing. Nor Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus, who booted it out of her umbrella group.