Why are Anthony Albanese and Labor protecting union mates from scrutiny? One word: money

It’s all fine and good for Anthony Albanese to want to clean up corruption in Canberra, but protecting the building industry from oversight looks like sheer hypocrisy

Car park rorts: Bad!

Construction industry rorts?

Well, you see, it’s complicated.

When it comes right down to it, Anthony Albanese’s new Labor government is asking voters to look the other way at an incredible double standard as he reopens parliament on a promise of creating a federal ICAC while at the same time vowing to all but eliminate the construction industry watchdog.

What else can one say about Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke saying Sunday that the Australian Building and Construction Commission’s powers would be “pulled back to the bare legal minimum” before the body was finally abolished?

Australian Employment Minister Tony Burke. Picture: AAP Image

Well, actually, one could say a lot – and most of it would be about Labor and their relations with unions like the CFMEU, which have been in the crosshairs of the ABCC since it was established.

In 2017, the CFMEU and its organisers were fined $96,000 after blockading work at the Port of Melbourne.

That same year the union was pinged $54,500 after trying to force workers at a Queensland site to join up.

And those are just a couple of examples of times the union has been fined.

No wonder the CFMEU has called the ABCC a “rogue regulator”.

Oh, and in what is surely a coincidence the CFMEU has also donated millions to ALP coffers over the years.

Trade and construction workers take part in a protest march in Sydney. Picture: AAP Image

In 2019, asked by the ABC’s 7:30 if he would dissociate himself from the CFMEU while controversial organiser John Setka remained as its Victorian head, Mr Albanese dismissed complaints and said, “The fact is, there are also employers in the construction industry that have had real issues. This is a dangerous industry.”

Now politics is a cynical business and no one should expect anyone on any side to be completely pure.

But it is quite something to see it so starkly brought to light just hours before the new parliament convenes.

As parliament prepares to reconvene the Coalition would be well within its rights to ask why Labor is more interested in scrutinising its behaviour in parliament than its union mates’ on building sites.

Whether Messrs Albanese and Burke have any good answers to that question is another matter entirely.

Originally published as Why are Anthony Albanese and Labor protecting union mates from scrutiny? One word: money