Editor’s view: Who will challenge the union? Certainly not the government of the day

Here is a title that Queensland does not need – the strike capital of Australia. But that is the case and it’s unlikely to change anytime soon, writes The Editor.

• Battles and protests: CFMEU in Qld

Here is a title that Queensland does not need – the strike capital of Australia. But that is the case, with the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data showing Queensland lost 9400 workdays to union action in the first three months of this year – more than half the national total, from a state with just one-fifth of the nation’s population.

This was no anomaly – 11,000 days were lost in the December quarter, and 8000 the quarter before that.

You have to go back to 2017 to find higher numbers. Between then and now, the average quarterly total of days lost to strikes has been a half, or less, of the latest figures.

So what’s going on? Well, it is the almost-inevitable outcome of a long-term Labor government that has lost any desire to rein in the more extreme behaviour of its union masters.

Don’t forget, this is a government led by a premier who won the job just six months ago only after being formally backed by the state’s most influential union boss, the United Workers Union’s Gary Bullock, who had decided Labor’s once much-loved Annastacia Palaszczuk had lost her magic. That coup was a harsh reminder of who really calls the shots when Labor is in power.

CFMEU at the Brisbane Labour Day March. Picture: Liam Kidston

This unambiguous flexing of union muscle to decide the next premier does not automatically translate into more industrial unrest, but it certainly makes government ministers more gun-shy when it comes to calling out unreasonable union behaviour.

For example, when the CFMEU recently ramped up its stoush with the head contractor of Cross River Rail by blockading worksites, Mr Miles refused to engage in the dispute – insisting instead that it was a commonwealth matter and that he had no power to intervene.

Surely, being the premier gives you the authority to speak up on behalf of the people of Queensland who are the ones footing the bill for Cross River Rail and all those other big state government projects with ever-soaring construction costs – costs that keep soaring in no small part because of this government’s biggest capitulation to the militant unions, its Best Practice Industry Conditions policy (BPICs).

The construction industry claims the policy – essentially a union wish list of terms and conditions ticked off apparently without challenge by the government – has boosted big project costs by 30 per cent or more while reducing productivity on those worksites by the same.

Instead of testing these union demands to make sure they’re in the best interests of the state, former public works and procurement minister and now energy minister Mick de Brenni has enthusiastically supported them – saying he did not understand why they are a problem. “Our job is to deliver good wages for working Queenslanders – that’s our purpose.”

Now, any Labor government will, by definition, always be pro-labour and pro-union. That’s only to be expected. But what we have at the moment is a government cowed into submission by union bosses.

It is little wonder then the unions – judging from these latest strike figures – feel quite safe flexing their industrial muscle. Who’s going to challenge them? It certainly won’t be the government of the day.