Opinion: Unionist Michael Ravbar must be held to account
FINDINGS against a Queensland union official could prove a headache for the senior Labor politicians he is close to, writes Des Houghton.
Opinion
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FOUR years ago in his report to Parliament on union corruption, Dyson Hayden QC recommended extortion charges against Queensland CFMEU boss and ALP powerbroker Michael Ravbar, who sits alongside Bill Shorten, Anthony Albanese and others on the party’s national executive.
Hayden’s Royal Commission Into Trade Union Governance and Corruption found multiple cases of “blackmail and extortion by officers of the CFMEU in Victoria and Queensland”.
Ravbar and others were quizzed over blockades and disruptions during construction of vital civic projects – the $1.5 billion Legacy Way tunnel and the $385 million Port Connect project.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions eventually declined to prosecute Ravbar in the criminal courts, saying there were no reasonable prospects of success.
However he was found guilty of workplace breaches in the Federal Court. This week Justice John Reeves reserved his decision on what penalties he should apply.
The offence carries a maximum penalty of $6600 for an individual and $33,000 for the CFMEU.
The court found Ravbar and a union organiser, Andrew Sutherland, now the union’s national assistant secretary, had breached workplace laws in matters brought by the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The court heard of a long campaign against Universal Cranes and unlawful blockades because the company refused to sign up to a contentious union agreement.
Reeves said Ravbar pressured Universal Cranes to enter a union pattern agreement by ordering organisers to disrupt its cranes and that his behaviour was also unlawful discrimination.
“The exertion of the pressure was unlawful, illegitimate and/or unconscionable,” he held.
And that decision may provide headaches for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Industrial Relations Minister Grace Grace.
Ravbar’s unlawful behaviour may void his “right-to-enter” permit to building sites and is expected to spark a separate jurisdictional court battle between the Queensland and Federal governments over union access laws.
Grace’s ministerial diaries show she had a formal meeting with Ravbar last year. She was criticised for refusing to say what they discussed.
The court heard the CFMEU had been antagonistic towards Universal Cranes chief Albert Smith for many years.
The New Zealand-born civil engineer purchased Universal Cranes in 2003.
The court heard that in 2012, Smith refused to agree to a CFMEU pattern agreement which involved paying money into the union’s redundancy fund BERT, the Building Employment Redundancy Trust operated by the CFMEU. It reportedly holds $130 million in assets.
At the royal commission, BERT was described as a slush fund.
The royal commission found BERT might have committed a “serious breach of trust” in 2012 by paying money to provide financial support for workers engaged in “unlawful strike action”.
“This possible breach of trust occurred because Michael Ravbar and the other union appointed directors of BERT may have breached their duties to BERT,” the report to Parliament noted.
Emails and other court documents presented in court show the CFMEU increased pressure on Smith after he negotiated with Universal Cranes’ employees for a new non-union enterprise agreement.
A majority of the employees voted in favour of that enterprise agreement at a ballot conducted on July 9, 2012, and approved by the Fair Work Commission on August 2.
Smith had another gripe with the CFMEU. He opposed a clause in the proposed agreement that allowed the union to stop work for two-hour meetings at any time.
Ravbar, who started work with the CFMEU in February 1993, told the court Smith was a “fruit loop”.
Justice Reeves said Ravbar was “verbose and discursive” in giving his evidence.
“Consequently, on many occasions, I found it difficult to discern what he meant in his answers to questions.” Reeves said.
“Nonetheless, I consider this was more a result of a personal mannerism than a deliberate attitude of non-responsiveness.’’
Reeves noted Ravbar said Smith was “divisive” during his term as president of the Crane Industry Owners’ Association.
Said Ravbar: “… there was (sic) big resignations by a number of companies who thought Albert was a bit of a fruit loop.”
Ravbar also criticised Smith’s “anti-union” stance.
Reeves added: “(Ravbar) thought Mr Smith was an “unusual character”. He claimed he had publicly opposed union industry funds such as the BERT fund and had described them as union “slush funds”.”
The court heard that during one dispute with Smith six CFMEU organisers got up in the morning to follow cranes leaving the United Cranes premises so as to disrupt their work when they arrived at project sites.
Almost a year later, Smith relented and agreed to the CFMEU deal.
The court heard the CFMEU “incidents” delayed work and added costs to vital city projects although any additional costs were not quantified.
Perhaps they should be.
Royal commission findings against Ravbar were debated in State Parliament in November 2015.
The then shadow attorney-general Ian Walker told the House that Ravbar had been accused of breaches of duty under the Corporations Act, secondary boycotts under the Competition and Consumer Act and extortion under the Criminal Code.
He said Ravbar was also recommended for prosecution for threats to cause detriment to another person.
“That’s blackmail, to me,” Walker told Parliament.
At the time Director of Public Prosecutions Michael Byrne QC defended the decision not to proceed against Ravbar.
“Evidence adduced at a royal commission is not necessarily admissible in criminal proceedings,” he said.
The DPP believed there were “no reasonable prospects of successfully prosecuting Mr Ravbar”.
Waste of members’ funds
BHP, the global mining, metals and petroleum colossus formerly known as BHP Billiton, employs about 11,000 people in Queensland.
Many of them work above and below the ground in the seven coalmines it runs in a joint venture with Mitsubishi.
And there are two more mines in a BHP Mitsui Coal joint venture.
BHP also own the Hay Point coal terminal south of Mackay and Red Mountain coal-washing facility southwest of Mackay.
BHP is a genuine wealth creator. In its Economic Contribution Report, BHP has just announced it paid $983 million in royalties to the State Government in the 2018 financial year.
So it is all the more puzzling to me why blow-hard Stephen Smyth, the CFMEU mining division chief, should turn up at an anti-BHP protest in London. To my mind, Smyth was biting the hand that feeds his members.
I think his actions are shameful. Smyth’s globetrotting on behalf of his members has earned him the nickname “Slipstream”.
Is that really how the hard-working coalminers in this state want their money spent?
That’s him on the cover of IndustriALL Global Union’s online magazine.
Strike! Strike!
EDUCATION and Industrial Relations Minister Grace Grace faces an embarrassing revolt within her own departments with unionists accusing her of betraying a campaign for equal pay. Together union organised a number of street rallies and derided Grace on its website. “The ‘all talk, no action’ approach of the Government is not fooling us,” the union said.
“We are asking for equal pay for equal work, safe workloads and safe workplaces. So far the department’s response has been, ‘We have instructions to not give you an offer’.”
Together represents health workers (not nurses), child protection and disability support workers, scientists, administrative staff, TAFE teachers, prison officers and others.
Together even threatened strikes, adding: “What is Minister Grace going to do now?”
What indeed.
Union slump
UNION membership in Queensland continues to decline, despite the featherbedding in our bloated state bureaucracy. There are 348,616 unionists in the state, a drop of 1363 in 12 months. The right-wing Australian Workers’ Union, of which the Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is a member, seems to be in a death dive. It lost a staggering 10,688 members in a year, according to a report to Parliament.
The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association also took a hit. It shed 1169 members but still has 29,833. The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union shed 1364 members for a total of 22,585.
The unions that are holding their own are all linked to large government departments where a union encouragement policy is in place.
The Queensland Nurses Union has 59,580 members, an increase of 1657 members. It is the state’s biggest union, although it is being challenged by the plucky Nurses Professional Association of Queensland, which has 3363 members.
The Queensland Teachers Union signed up 995 new members, taking its total to 45,405. United Voice (29,599) and Together Queensland (27,340) posted modest membership gains. Queensland’s smallest union, the Australian Maritime Officers Union of Queensland, now has 16 members, losing one last year.
By my count, the State Labor Government has hired an additional 22,320 public servants since Campbell Newman was swept from office.
Expansion time
I’M TOLD the sleepy hamlet of Ballandean on the Granite Belt is about to get an enormous shake-up, with Sirromet Wines planning a major vineyards upgrade while examining the possibility of building a cellar door, probably near the big dinosaur off the New England Highway. Around the corner, Tobin Wines on Ricca Rd plans to demolish an old house for a new cellar door. The winery will also be expanded.
Anna love-in
IN HIS new biography, Kevin Rudd, The PM Years (Pan Macmillan), the former prime minister reveals his admiration for Anna Bligh and how he planned to draft the former Queensland premier (inset) into federal politics.
“Anna was one of the most competent state premiers the country has ever seen,” he writes. “What I did want was as many first-class women in federal Labor politics as possible, and Anna was as smart as paint. She would have gone a long, long way nationally.”
Rudd was happy when Anna defeated the LNP’s Lawrence Springborg in the 2009 poll.
The Borg, he said (unfairly, in my view), was an “unreconstructed right-wing nut job” and a “political reincarnation of Joh Bjelke-Petersen”. Ouch!
Irritant of the week
THE Queensland Government’s useless and discriminatory container deposit scheme.
It’s a green tax that will inflate the shopping bills of working families forced to pay more for thousands of products.
Taxpayers will be hit a second time for the cost of setting up a new bureaucracy.
Rory Gibson reveals the one thing women should never do
I know we are in holiday mode, but if you don’t mind I’d like your opinion on an issue of great importance before we all clock off for the year.
Think outside box with Olympic bid
Today readers have their say on Queensland’s bid for the 2032 Olympic Games, the volcano tragedy in New Zealand and an inquiry into veterans’ suicide.