‘Build, baby, build’: Bleijie details CFMEU probe amid estimates drama

Queensland’s powerful public inquiry into the CFMEU will be given wide scope to consider a new “fit and proper person” test for officials, and to scrutinise workplace agreements.

The commission of inquiry’s finalised terms of reference, released late on Wednesday, will allow it to probe existing or previous laws and any person or group that “enabled” alleged misconduct.

Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie also used the announcement, during a parliamentary estimates hearing, to repeat his pointed political attacks against the former Labor government.

Queensland Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie was grilled at an estimates hearing on Wednesday.Credit: Jamila Filippone

Bleijie levelled accusations that Labor had “facilitated” the CFMEU’s “systemic violence and protection rackets”, of which the recent Watson report “only scratched the surface”.

“This is Labor’s Fitzgerald moment,” he said, in a nod to the almost two-year inquiry that led to the fall of premier Joh Bjelke-Peterson and the jailing of former ministers and officials.

The CFMEU inquiry, expected to run for 12 months under the leadership of a yet-to-be-revealed chair – who could be announced this week – will also be able to consider changes to criminal laws.

Allegations around the “systemic nature” of misconduct involving the union’s current and former leadership will feature in the probe, which will have the power to compel – and protect – witnesses and documents.

Any involvement of organised crime or other criminal elements will also be investigated, as will irregularities in the union’s financial dealings, and the impact of any misconduct on the productivity of specific projects, the construction industry in general, and the wider economy.

The latter will be a focus despite a newly rebooted state Productivity Commission report on the building sector, which is due to be handed to government this week.

Bleijie’s role as industrial relations minister was set to be probed during a later session of estimates hearings on Wednesday, with the afternoon portion focused on his other portfolio areas of state development, infrastructure and planning.

In summing up his introductory comments for the state development portfolio, the staunch monarchist tried his best impression of US President Donald Trump.

“If I were to sum up the role of the department … it is this: build, baby, build. And we will,” Bleijie said, aping Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” slogan around oil and gas production.

The hearing also featured revelations that former federal Liberal MP Julian Simmonds will likely be made the permanent chief executive of the Queensland government’s property development agency – without any formal recruitment process.

Simmonds, who sat on Brisbane’s LNP city council for nine years before his term as the federal member for Ryan, was given the Economic Development Queensland (EDQ) role in an acting capacity in April after the resignation of Debbie McNamara.

Deputy Opposition Leader Cameron Dick used much of his time in Wednesday’s estimates hearings to quiz both Simmonds and State Development Department director-general John Sosso, whose role places him on the EDQ board.

Simmonds said that while he could not recall the timeline, he approached Bleijie’s chief of staff to express his interest in the role and was told to speak to board chair Brendan O’Farrell.

Sosso, a veteran public servant of LNP governments and controversial appointee to the group overseeing redistribution of state electorates, said O’Farrell then recommended Simmonds for the job, “satisfied that his skill set and personality would be advantageous to the future success of EDQ”.

Asked whether a promised national executive recruitment process for the role had begun, Sosso said it had not, and that based on Simmonds’ current performance and unanimous support of the board, he may be appointed permanently “without further advertisement”.

Before Simmonds’ appointment to the public agency role, he was the executive director of Australians for Prosperity, which ran attack ads against federal and state Labor governments.

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