Swift justice for CFMEU belies a deeply conflicted Labor

Watching Tony Burke bring the hammer down on the CFMEU, Australians must have been wondering why all this was necessary, writes James Morrow.

• ‘Gates of hell’: CFMEU hit back

Watching Employment Minister Tony Burke bring the hammer down (gently, it must be said) on the CFMEU on Wednesday, Australians must have been left scratching their heads and wondering why all this was necessary.

After all, Burke and his colleagues in the Albanese Labor government made scrapping the Australian Building and Construction Commission a key priority once they took office.

Surely they only would have done this because they were satisfied that the construction unions were clean and free from corruption, bullying, and standover tactics.

Right?

Well, maybe not.

Employment Minister Tony Burke announced the Albanese government will ensure administrators can be appointed to overhaul the construction division of the CFMEU.

Look, we have to take Burke at his word that he did not know anything about specific allegations of corrupt behaviour in Victoria.

But let’s be really honest about the fact that the construction union’s history is, shall we say, somewhat chequered.

And let us also note that Labor is deeply conflicted here.

Yes, it claims to want to clean up union corruption.

Which is great, except that unions such as the CFMEU donate vast sums of money to state and federal ALP coffers.

After the old Builders Labourers’ Federation was stripped of its registration in 1986, the CFMEU absorbed members and branches, leading to ugly internal fights and, according to some observers, a culture of bad behaviour that continues to this day.

Employment Minister Tony Burke says he did not know anything about specific allegations of corrupt behaviour in the CFMEU in Victoria. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Claims of misconduct in the building industry led to the Cole Royal Commission, which recommended sweeping changes that led to the eventual appointment of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner.

A later royal commission chaired by Dyson Heydon found construction industry unions behaved in “wilful defiance of the law.”

And every few years, it seemed, a new investigative report would unearth claims of bullying, standover tactics, and corruption, often by the CFMEU, and often by its notorious Victorian secretary, John Setka.

The union movement, of course, claims that everything is above board, and that bodies like the ABCC in fact have achieved relatively few prosecutions simply because the building industry is clean and any attempt to say otherwise is the just right wing anti worker rhetoric.

But within the building industry, a lack of protection for those who complain and raise concerns also means that a lot of bad behaviour goes unpunished.