Rita Panahi: Disruptive buffoonery proves CFMEU runs Victoria

CFMEU run the show in this state and one can only wonder what internal shenanigans motivated Thursday morning’s disruptive buffoonery.

If you were late for work Thursday morning or missed an important appointment then you can thank the belligerent boneheads of the CFMEU.

The militant construction union, which has pumped huge sums of cash to the Labor Party, thought a little peak hour chaos would be the ideal way to flex their industrial muscle.

Premier Dan Andrews may have apologised to commuters but don’t expect him to come down hard on his union mates.

They run the show in this state and one can only wonder what internal shenanigans motivated this morning’s disruptive buffoonery.

The union stopped work on the $10.6 billion project, which is late and over budget, supposedly over “safety concerns”.

But despite assurances from WorkSafe to the CFMEU that there were no safety issues it took a visit from police before work could proceed.

The end result was that all inbound lanes were not open until 9.30am, meaning commuter chaos during peak hour with traffic backed up for some 20 kilometres.

While the premier was apologetic about the peak hour mayhem he refused to criticise his union mates.

Don’t expect Premier Daniel Andrews to come down hard on his union mates. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

“We’ll try and better understand what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. I am very sorry about it,” he said.

“Clearly a whole lot of people who needed to get to where they were going couldn’t get there in good time. I am upset about that. I deeply regret that. It’s a function of work that should have been done overnight, packed away and the road reopened for the morning. That didn’t happen.”

Opposition leader Matthew Guy was scathing of the union’s actions and the premier’s kowtowing.

“The Andrews government isn’t beholden to the union movement, it is the union movement,” he said on Sky News.

“There isn’t any space between the government and the union movement in Victoria. The Union movement is the government in the state of Victoria … the second largest state in the country is completely captured by the union movement throughout every organ of government.”

The West Gate Tunnel project, like every other major endeavour the state government has overseen, is behind schedule and over budget, some $3.3 billion over budget and counting.

It’s little wonder that Victoria has, by some margin, the highest state debt in the country.