LNP, Labor unite in condemning CFMEU protest

Workers who participated in union protests in Brisbane this week will be docked pay, Premier David Crisafulli said as the actions of some in the crowd drew condemnation from both sides of politics.

Protests over the High Court’s decision on Wednesday, which upheld the legality of the federal government’s decision to put the union into administration, were held over two days in Brisbane at the end of the working week.

During Friday’s protest, insults of “media bitch” were hurled towards at least one female journalist, who was covering the event outside the CFMEU’s headquarters at Bowen Hills. She was one of several journalists verbally targeted during the protests.

CFMEU members rallying at Bowen Hills this week in the wake of the High Court decision.Credit: William Davis

Speaking in Ipswich on Saturday, Crisafulli said the behaviour was unruly, unlawful and disgraceful.

“All sides of politics at all levels have to call it out, otherwise these people will continue to lurk in the shadows and treat people the way that we saw yesterday,” he said.

“Journalists go to work to do their job and report on the news. They don’t go to work to be treated in a way that we saw across our TV screens and radios and newspapers in the last in the last 24 and 48 hours.

“That behaviour is a disgrace, and every leader has to call it out – every leader – because otherwise it will be more of the same and these individuals will reinvent themselves, hiding under the shadows of other banners.

“It does a great discredit for the credible people in the union movement that you have one union with a handful of marauding people who are destroying the fabric of who we are as a state.”

Labor Opposition frontbencher Shannon Fentiman said Labor supported the High Court decision, given it was the former Miles government that took action to put an administrator in place.

Fentiman said the scenes in Bowen Hills this week undermined all unions.

“I just want to be very clear from the outset that there is no room for misogyny or attacking a journalist who is trying to do their job,” she said.

“We want to make sure that this behaviour is absolutely unacceptable everywhere in the community. It was certainly unacceptable at this protest.

“People have a right to protest, but it has to be done lawfully, respectfully and peacefully and clearly, that’s not what we’ve seen here and it’s unacceptable.”

Crisafulli said the protest was unsanctioned, so those who participated would not get paid.

“I suspect there were many workers who weren’t aware that they weren’t going to be paid, because the modus operandi of those individuals and that particular union is never been about workers,” he said.

“It’s been about themselves and power and control and grubby behaviour.”