Mike O’Connor: Union thugs are dictating government policy

Bullying and coercion are commonplace in the trade union movement and in the face of weak political leadership, we all pay a price, writes Mike O’Connor.

Thirty-nine years have passed since then-prime minister Bob Hawke rose to his feet in the House of Representatives and made one of the most significant speeches of his career.

“With the background I have in the trade union movement, it gives me no pleasure to have arrived at this situation,” he said.

“But it is a necessary position that we have reached now and we intend to take the action which is necessary in the interests of this society.

“We do so in the name of the country as a whole.”

The action of which he spoke was his decision to deregister the Builders’ Labourers Federation, saying that the BLF’s complete disdain for the law, and its frequent resort to thuggery and physical coercion had no place in our society and it had shown nothing but contempt for our system and values.

The CFMEU was born out of the ruins of the BLF.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke speaks at the National Press Club in 1986.

With the acquiescence of the construction companies that have rolled over rather than fight it and the Labor Party, which it bankrolls to the tune of millions of dollars and which dances to its tune, it is now out of control.

Hawke must be spinning in his grave.

The threats made recently by the union’s Victorian secretary John Setka to effectively sabotage Australian Football League construction projects unless it sacked its chief umpire Stephen McBurney because he sat on the Australian Building and Construction Commission is but the latest example of the contempt with which it regards society.

There is nothing new here.

In 2017, Setka made similar threats against the ABBC staff, including their children in his diatribe.

CFMEU Victoria secretary John Setka speaks at the ALP state conference in 2013.

“Let me give a dire warning to the ABCC inspectors: be careful what you do,” he said.

“You know what we’re going to do?

“We’re going to expose them all. We will tell them who lives in that house.

“What he does for a living. We will go to their local football club.

“We will go to the local shopping centre. They will not be able to show their faces anywhere.

“Their kids will be ashamed of who their parents are.”

In that same year, the CFMEU went on strike at the Oaky North mine in Queensland’s Bowen Basin.

According to security reports, threats hurled at workers crossing the picket line to get to work included “I’ll attack you with a crowbar,” “I’ll rip out your spine”, and “I’ll rape your f---ing kids.”

It wasn’t Setka hurling the abuse on that occasion.

■ Battles and protests: History of the CFMEU

Former state premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

When asked whether she would censure the union, then-premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said: “I think that’s a matter for them.”

We now have a situation where a trade union official openly boasts that his union is the power behind members of the federal government and that if they were thinking of criticising the union, they should remember where they came from, and by inference, who had the power to end their careers if they didn’t line up.

So this is how our democracy functions in 2024.

Anthony Albanese’s response to this anarchy has been to ask journalists not to ask questions about Setka because it will only encourage him.

The best Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke could do was to meekly describe the union’s threats as “odd”.

Setka’s response was to suggest he sit down and shut up.

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

The cost of housing continues to rise beyond the reach of many and is the subject of much hand-wringing by the political class.

But one of the reasons for this is that the CFMEU’s demands add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of individual apartments in large projects.

Everyone looks the other way.

I walk past a construction site most mornings. There were four traffic controllers holding stop-go signs there recently on a collective salary of close to $1m a year.

The developer pays up, which ensures there are no “safety” issues disrupting the job and passes on the cost to the mug punters. Everyone’s happy except the homebuyer.

It is easy to dismiss Setka as a rogue, but he represents a culture that has been allowed to develop to the point where union officials are dictating government policy.

In Queensland, the Miles government is a trade union puppet show. Bullying and coercion are commonplace and ultimately, in the face of weak, compliant leadership, we all pay a price one way or another.

When the current Prime Minister failed to front a Victorian Labor conference, Setka told him to “grow some balls”.

Bob Hawke would surely agree.