Madona King: CFMEU and its leaders can’t survive, but the buck can’t stop there
The CFMEU inquiry has exposed allegations of hit squads, property deals and intimidation, writes Madonna King.
It’s a plot more suited to an episode of The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, but over coming months it will be impossible to simply switch off the claims of rampant lawlessness already being exposed by the inquiry into the CFMEU.
Just imagine the one episode, aired this week, when it was revealed that a CFMEU delegate, who has since been charged with murder and torture, would drive organisers to interviews with corruption buster Geoffrey Watson SC.
We know they were given a tape recorder to record their interviews with Watson - but are left to imagine the conversation that might have unfolded on each of those journeys.
How might that have gone?
The inquiry now being held by Stuart Wood KC will run until his report his handed to government at the end of July next year.
But already, we’ve seen a plot that might be filled with fear and coercion and violence.
We’ve seen allegations of hit squads set up to intimidate others, how personal fiefdoms were created and big fat property deals.
We’ve seen misogyny so bad that a female public servant was spat on and another female government employee allegedly locked in an office and ‘screamed’ at by one of the CFMEU’s chief protagonists.
Indeed, so bad was the abuse directed at women, that Watson told the inquiry he didn’t include some of it “in case these perverts got some pleasure out of reading what they’ve done’’.
Fear will be a key and ongoing thread in this real-life drama. Indeed, even the commission’s website says its priority is to “keep everyone safe, including those who provide information’’.
It’s just a trailer hinting what else might be aired during upcoming episodes.
We know the CFMEU and it’s leadership cannot survive this inquiry. Nor can the culture - if that is the correct term - that has been central to creating the construction industry.
But the opprobrium can’t stop there.
To steal from another screen favourite - Dancing with the Stars - it takes two to tango, maybe even more in the high stakes, high profit construction industry.
Governments, of all flavour but particularly Labor, for too long have been limp in their response to the behaviour that has set the tone of our construction sites.
Yes, there have been inquiries, even prosecutions and convictions but they have not touched the side of criminality we would not accept anywhere else.
Then there is the role of some of the construction companies themselves. They have long moaned about the muscle of the CFMEU, but then go away and strike the deals that let them get on with the job - even at the high cost imposed by the CFMEU.
Why? In part, it’s because the short term super profits from construction and development supersede the longer term cost of overpaying and bowing to thugs.
They should not be let off the hook in this inquiry and anyone found to permit criminality in their workplaces will have some interesting questions to answer.
(And those construction companies who ignored this way of doing business should be named and praised)
While the CFMEU’s reach is into the big ticket high rise developments of major infrastructure projects (those in the billions, not mere tens of millions), the resulting productivity loss infects the entire building industry all the way down to building a house or getting it repaired.
And someone has to pay. If your superannuation owns or is developing a major city building, you can be sure the price they pay includes the “levy’’ imposed by the CFMEU work (or non-work) practices. That’s a direct hit on the money saved for your retirement.
One thing that’s important to remember however is that not every person on a building site is a thug. In the words used by Mark Irving KC some might be “good soldiers of bad generals’’.
Many construction workers and CFMEU members take pride in their labour, work hard for their living and have no truck with the conduct being laid bare in this inquiry.
Its task is to sort out those who at the centre of this sore, and show little mercy in the recommendations around what needs to happen to the industry - and them.
But it shouldn’t miss those, including in government and business, who also allowed it to fester for far too long.
