Meet Dr Steven Miles, whose PhD is in ‘Trade Union Renewal’

The CFMEU being described in Federal Parliament as a criminal organisation rubbed Labor’s nose in it again, and the timing couldn’t have been worse for Miles, writes Des Houghton.

Steven Miles has nowhere left to hide.

The corrupt CFMEU that funds Labor’s election campaigns has seen to that.

The union described in Federal Parliament as a criminal organisation rubbed Labor’s nose in it again this week.

The timing couldn’t be worse for Miles with new polling by The Courier-Mail showing Labor is facing a wipeout in the October state election.

The Premier looked especially weak and vacillating with his insipid response to union intimidation with allegations of kickbacks and bikie enforcers being engaged by the CFMEU as standover men.

Dr Steven John Miles, whose PhD thesis was titled “Trade Union Renewal in Australia: rebuilding worker involvement” didn’t seem to like the idea of federal intervention into CFMEU branches and hardly said a word about union thuggery.

I thought he was trying to sweep the controversy aside. Nor did he say much about the disruptive and costly CFMEU protest at the $7bn Cross River Rail site, or a Federal Court ruling forbidding unionists from getting too close to the entrances of 16 worksites. I got the feeling Miles was a seat warmer, a transitional nobody, a Palaszczuk stop-gap leading a sham government whose time had come.

Brett Lethridge’s take on the CFMEU saga.

Politicians have a shelf life, and seven opinion polls in a row show Dr Miles has almost certainly reached his. David Crisafulli, a cane farmer’s boy from Innisfail, has ALP on the run. Our poll showed the LNP has extended its two-party lead over the government to 57-43 per cent.

Crisafulli is wisely avoiding a presidential-style campaign against Miles, preferring instead to let Labor’s shameful record speak for itself.

Labor ministers are throwing mud at Crisafulli, but none of it is sticking.

Is it any wonder Labor is in decline?

The Premier and the other talentless grifters who make up his Cabinet have failed every test assigned to them.

There is not enough money left for extra hospital beds or vital infrastructure after the unions have taken their cut. While working families struggle with the cost-of-living crisis, the CFMEU fat cats enjoy bloated salaries courtesy of outrageous enterprise bargaining agreements given the tick of approved by Miles and his Industrial Relations Minister, Grace Grace, who backed the abolition of the ABCC, the construction watchdog. The rot has set in. The public service is toxic with several departments under an integrity cloud and the Crime and Corruption Commission providing little support for whistleblowers.

Now it seems to me the public purse has become a kind of slush fund to top up ALP electioneering in TV campaigns.

Premier Steven Miles and Minister Grace Grace during a media conference, Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston

After nine hard years of Labor mismanagement the rental crisis is worsening because of delays in freeing up land for new houses, ambulance ramping is the worst in the country, and vulnerable Queenslanders are hurt daily by youth crime.

Incompetent Labor ministers have set the scene for their own demise.

Thanks to the CFMEU, the Labor Party this week looked like a powder keg ready to explode.

It was almost comical the way IR Minister Tony Burke acted surprised to learn of wrongdoing in the CFMEU.

It’s been around for half a century. And I doubt if intervention will achieve anything at all.

Militant unions have repeatedly outsmarted attempts by several leaders – including Bob Hawke and Malcolm Turnbull – to make them obey the law. And they have just outsmarted Albanese.

Wrongdoing including bribery, blackmail and extortion, violence, rorting of members’ funds and right- of-entry breaches were found at four separate royal commissions conducted over the past 40 years: The Dyson Heydon royal commission 2014-15, the Winneke royal commission 1981-82, the Gyles royal commission (NSW) 1990-92 and the Cole royal commission 2001-03.

Scott Morrison came close to a meaningful reform in 2019 when he proposed a good character test that would disqualify disgraced union leaders from holding office. And he sought to empower the Federal Court to deregister corrupt unions. ScoMo was defeated, however, when One Nation and Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie joined Labor and the Greens in voting against his Ensuring Integrity Bill.

And we should not forget that when he was in opposition Albanese backed the CFMEU during the Heydon royal commission and at one stage suggested the inquiry was a witch-hunt and that Heydon be stood down. We have two big union stooges in this power now. Their names are Anthony Albanese and Steven Miles.