Union interference added $22 million to major Brisbane build site: Premier

The actions of the CFMEU at Brisbane’s Centenary Bridge Upgrade job site added $22 million to the project, Premier David Crisafulli claims.

Speaking a day after announcing a powerful inquiry into the union’s “thug” culture of bullying and intimidation, Crisafulli said “direct costs because of the behaviour of the CFMEU”, including workplace support and fencing and security to keep officials and protesting workers away from the site, amounted to $22 million.

“I’m not even factoring in the costs of project blowouts because of time and the kind of intimidation … I’m talking about the direct costs on one site because of the behaviour of one union,” Crisafulli told reporters on Monday morning.

Crisafulli announced royal commission-like inquiry into the CFMEU on Sunday after a damning 45-page report found the Queensland branch of the controversial building union cultivated a culture of violence, which was “eagerly executed” by some union organisers, delegates and rank-and-file members.

The report, by anti-corruption barrister Geoffrey Watson, SC, found the Queensland union’s former leadership Michael Ravbar and Jade Ingham oversaw a culture of abuse and harassment that included threats and intimidation of women and children.

The construction and general division of the CFMEU was placed into administration nationwide last year amid claims bikie and organised crime figures had infiltrated the organisation.

A crowd of men in CFMEU-branded clothing at the Centenary Bridge upgrade last year.

Crisafulli promised support for witnesses during the inquiry, which is expected run for 12 months.

A representative for the Premier said terms of reference and a head of the inquiry will be announced before the end of next month.

The likely cost of the inquiry is not yet known.

It will not call on CFMEU leadership from interstate, focusing exclusively on the Queensland branch.

“I’m mindful if we don’t do this quickly we run the risk of enabling this behaviour to continue in the shadows,” he said.

“Calling a commission of inquiry and getting it up and running more swiftly than what we’ve seen in the past, I do believe gives the opportunity for a light to be shone on that kind of behaviour.”

He said the inquiry would provide regular updates to the public and would consider “everything from legal prosecution, legislative reform, and above all creating safe workplace environments” to have the CFMEU “brought to heel”.

“Success, for me, looks like a CFMEU that doesn’t exist in its current form,” he said.

Meanwhile, Crisafulli praised the likes of the Australian Workers’ Union.

“I look at the way that the likes of the Australian Workers’ Union conduct themselves and it’s vastly different to the way the CFMEU does,” he said.

However, the $300 million Centenary Bridge Upgrade project, which included a new three-lane bridge between Jindalee and Kenmore, was among major projects infiltrated by criminal-linked companies as part of a ploy by AWU figures to outmuscle thugs and bikies aligned with the rival CFMEU.

Labour hire firm Host Group, which allied itself closely with the AWU in Queensland, won a major contract with the Centenary Bridge’s key contractor BMD Group.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that a security subcontractor used by Host engaged several high-ranking Comancheros, including the feared bikie group’s national president, Bemir Saracevic, to intimidate CFMEU figures in Brisbane last year.

Crisafulli was not asked about the AWU’s role in the project’s cost blowout on Monday.

“In the next four years, the amount of work that is going to occur in Queensland is the largest infrastructure pipeline in our state’s history, and we need that,” Crisafulli said.

“The only way that we’re going to deliver that infrastructure is if we’ve got work sites that are productive and safe, and people are well paid, and the bullying, intimidation and thuggery comes to an end.”

AWU’s Victorian secretary, Ronnie Hayden, has previously stressed he was unaware his union had backed any firms such as Host and demanded government intervention to clean up the sector.

The Queensland Council of Unions urged the Crisafulli government to not politicise the royal commission-like inquiry.

The council’s general secretary Jacqueline King also demanded the inquiry resist demanding witnesses retell their stories, fearing victims would be retraumatised for political purposes.

Queensland Council of Unions Secretary Jacqueline King says the commission of inquiry should not be politicised.Credit: AAPIMAGE

Details of the scope of the inquiry remained scant on Monday, but King said it should “place people and not politics first”.

“Witnesses who have already given their evidence privately through the Watson report should not be retraumatised by being compelled to retell their stories for political purposes,” she said.

“Others who may wish to come forward with evidence not already provided, should be provided the opportunity for privacy and anonymity with options given for evidence in closed court and supporting counselling.”

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