Union firebrand Paddy Crumlin among three directors nominated for Cbus board

The administrator of the trouble-plagued CFMEU has nominated three directors to the $94 billion superannuation fund Cbus, including union firebrand Paddy Crumlin, who last week railed against the union being placed into administration at a rally where a CFMEU official accused of bribery also gave a speech.

Jason O’Mara, the former ACT secretary of the construction union, who resigned from the Cbus board after administrator Mark Irving KC declared he wanted a “clean sweep”, was also re-nominated.

Paddy Crumlin has been appointed to the board of Cbus. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The administrator has confirmed Crumlin, the national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia and the national president of the CFMEU, will represent the construction union on the board of Cbus.

A committee on the Cbus board will consider Irving’s nominations, but they are expected to be rubber-stamped.

The appointment of Crumlin will be seen as controversial as the Maritime Union of Australia is funding a High Court challenge against the federal government’s decision to place the CFMEU into administration following this masthead’s Building Bad investigation, which exposed corruption, intimidation and criminal infiltration in the union.

“This [the administration] is an attack on every working man and woman in the country,” Crumlin said at a rally in NSW last week.

“What we won’t cop is to be lied about and vilified in public with no justice, no ability to come back, no ability to argue our case, no court to go to, just be marched off the job one after the other in a massive busting up of unions for what reason? Because we’re good at what we do.”

Darren Greenfield, who is alleged to have boasted to corrupt building firms that he could secure them lucrative contracts on major construction projects financed by Cbus because of his influence with insiders at the super fund, was also at that rally.

Lucy Weber from the CFMEU has also been nominated to the board following the resignation of Rita Mallia from Cbus after she was sacked from her state construction president role by Irving. Dave Noonan was forced out of Cbus after he refused to voluntarily resign on the grounds that there were no allegations of impropriety against him.

The construction union retains its representation on the Cbus board even though it is under administration.

More than 200 people have been stood down from the CFMEU since the administrator was appointed to clean up the union following revelations of corruption, intimidation and criminal infiltration in the union.

In a statement, Cbus chief executive Kristian Fok said: “The CFMEU has advised Cbus of its proposed nominees to our board, which will now be considered by a committee of the board.”

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