I have an idea for the government to raise money to help pay off the state debt. All senior ministers’ media conferences should become ticketed events that play around Victoria to packed houses.
There could be the dramatic trilogy, I Wasn’t Told; It Wasn’t Me; I Wasn’t There. The musical I Did It Their Way, and for the theatre restaurant crowd, Getting on the Beers. Sustainable energy would be headlined Gone With The Wind and the nuclear energy debate could be under Let Them Eat Yellow Cake.
While on the subject, why are there always two people standing silently behind the politician, staring intently at the back of the speaker’s head? Are they moonlighting Secret Service officers without their dark suits and sunglasses, skin cancer specialists looking for suspicious lumps, or out-of-work statue-mime artists plucked from the Bourke Street Mall?
Premier Jacinta Allan making a Suburban Rail Loop announcement.Credit: Wayne Taylor
This week we watched a stern-faced Premier Jacinta Allan respond to bombshell allegations from The Age that the CFMEU had gone rogue, was standing over businesses and had been infiltrated by organised crime.
She says she has zero tolerance of such matters and the government will urgently introduce tough amendments to criminal-association laws to stop this sort of infiltration.
Well, it’s not that urgent, as police have been pleading for these changes for more than four years.
In 2016, the anti-criminal association laws began operating and were trumpeted as a “game changer”. They were to stop serious crooks conspiring to commit further serious crimes, with those caught facing up to three years’ jail and fines of more than $50,000.
But the draft laws were watered down more than cordial at a kinder. The exemptions included crooks who were family members, seeking legal advice or involved in religious, study or work interests, so guess what. Not one person has been charged in eight years.
In 2020, an internal government review found the laws were as useful as floaties on the Titanic, and yet there was a stubborn resistance to change.
We asked Chief Commissioner Shane Patton about the laws. He responded: “I am very hopeful there will be changes in this space, and it will become a key weapon in the future.” That was 14 months ago.
If the laws had been changed when they were found to be useless, perhaps we wouldn’t have so many bikies in the Big Build we could do a remake of Easy Rider in the suburban rail tunnel.
Peter Fonda (left) and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider. John Setka could star in the remake.
If the CFMEU’s job is to improve workers’ wages and conditions, it has done a good job. But as most of those wages are paid on taxpayer-funded sites, one wonders why the government hasn’t taken a greater interest.
Traffic controllers on government gigs working four 12-hour night shifts can make more than $300,000 annually.
While this week’s crisis is the CFMEU, last week’s was youth crime.
“Mary” was a Virgin cabin crew staff member looking for a career change. She trained as a youth training officer starting on a wage of about $60,000. She quit six months later after having a shiv held to her throat.
With the massive disposable income generated for young people on the Big Build it is natural that cocaine dealers, like sharks near a penguin colony, loiter. Building sources say random drug testing can be anything but. On one site there were 100 workers. The next day (when there was to be a random drug test) there were 32.
The premier has written to the chief commissioner asking for an investigation into the allegations involving the CFMEU. The chief commissioner has said it will take about a month to assess the situation.
But we can reveal there has been a secret police taskforce that completed an equally secret report, never released.
Until now.
“The investigation has revealed collusion between various union officials and a number of property developers and builders in this state,” it said.
The taskforce found non-preferred companies and individuals were black-banned, whistleblowers threatened, enemies’ houses set on fire, land transferred from developers to union bosses, rebuilds and renovations of union executives’ (and their families’) houses completed by developers with the costs carried by building sites.
It discovered TVs, refrigerators, cash, timber, labour, were provided free of charge. Sneaking up to one union boss’s holiday house, they found a lovely cabin cruiser in the garage. It was on permanent loan from a developer.
“There is evidence that some of these people have purchased property in false names or used relatives’ names to purchase property.
“Whilst it can be said that in the first place pressure was put on the developers to improve conditions, it has become apparent that various named officials became recipients of presents from the developers and builders to prevent trouble on their sites.”
The report was by Detective Inspector R. E. Murphy and dated July 16, 1981. It was into the Builders Labourers Federation, which eventually morphed into the CFMEU.
Change the initials and change the date and what has really changed?
Don’t think for a minute that turning a blind eye is anything new, for rarely is there an appetite for industrial confrontation. The Big Build, giant office towers, the Sydney Olympics and giant shopping centres were targets as they were too big to fail.
And the construction companies and developers that paid to be on the inside have an unfair advantage against competitors on the outside. So why would they blow the whistle?
Police clash with Builders Labourers Federation members in 1986.Credit: AGE ARCHIVES
Former Australian Federal Police senior officer Nigel Hadgkiss was a cop not frightened to upset people on both sides of the fence. He worked for the Wood royal commission on NSW police corruption, the National Crime Authority, the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions and the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
When still with the AFP, he charged construction boss Bruno Grollo with fraud and corruption (Grollo was acquitted).
The CFMEU saw Hadgkiss as an enemy, referring to him as the head of a “construction attack dog” and claimed he “is infamous for his persecution of workers”.
Don’t those remarks sound remarkably familiar.
Before CFMEU Victorian leader John Setka decided to resign after receiving curly questions from The Age, he wanted the head of AFL umpires, Steve McBurney, sacked and threatened to disrupt AFL construction projects.
This was not because Setka was concerned about onfield slings or backhanders (although some in the union were allegedly receiving both), but because McBurney had taken on the union when an Australian Building and Construction commissioner.
Setka told 3AW: “He’s an anti-worker zealot.” It was part of a 16-year campaign. In 2008, he wrote of McBurney as the “attack dog – the anti-worker”.
The attacks on Hadgkiss and McBurney are straight out of the playbook. When called to account, attack and never stop, a strategy to intimidate critics and deter others from coming forward.
Twenty years ago, Hadgkiss, head of a building industry taskforce wrote: “The taskforce is aware of information which clearly indicates that the services of underworld figures, including notorious criminals and outlaw motorcycle gangs, are engaged by some industry participants to advance their industrial objectives.
“Equally alarming to the taskforce are reports received about threats and intimidation, including assaults on people and property, being used as a means of advancing industrial agendas by parties in the industry.”
In 2012 he told us, “I still hold grave concerns over industry figures and their criminal associates who threaten and intimidate honest workers.”
Former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams (left) with IRA prison leader Brendan “The Dark” Hughes in Long Kesh prison near Belfast in 1973. Nice Melbourne T-shirt.
In an earlier investigation, detectives found whistleblowers were shunned. “Those who have the courage to take the matter further seem to have won less success by complaining to a government, which in turn doesn’t want to upset major unions. This will continue to be the case, particularly as the government will be seeking to reach solid agreements with the unions in support of the bid for the [2000 Sydney] Olympic Games.”
One of the allegations found too hot to be properly investigated was that some building unions sheltered IRA terrorists. According to detectives, young Irishmen entered Australia through Perth under false names and ended up on building sites drawing ghosted wages.
“They were referred to by those in the know as soldiers enjoying some R&R,” a detective reported.
One was introduced at a construction site as a builder from Dublin. When he shook hands with a concreter, the veteran remarked that the smooth hands of the visitor indicated he was a stranger to a day on the tools. The casual observation came at a cost when the older man’s car was written off in an industrial accident.
A secret Victoria Police investigation reported, “We were advised not to pursue the issue of IRA soldiers entering Australia. The raising of money by the Sinn Féin in Australia, particularly in the building industry, was also an area that we were advised not to pursue.”
In return, the report asserted, one union boss used a standover gang known as the “Irish Connection” to threaten enemies and collect black money.
One famous member of the modern IRA was Brendan “The Dark” Hughes, a bomber, leader of the Belfast Brigade, and prison hunger striker, who died in 2008.
There is a photo of Hughes wearing a “Melbourne Irish Club” T-shirt. It was from a batch of five presented to IRA visitors heading home. More appropriate than a stuffed koala under the circumstances, it would seem.