Lendlease rejects CFMEU cartel claims

Lendlease has hit back at claims by Michaelia Cash that it has engaged in cartel-like conduct with the construction union.

Michaelia Cash used parliamentary privilege to criticise pay deals struck by Lendlease with the construction union. Picture: AAP.

Property giant Lendlease has hit back at criticism by Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, denying the company has engaged in cartel-like conduct with the construction union.

Spruiking the government’s new building code, Senator Cash used parliamentary privilege on Wednesday night to criticise pay deals struck by Lendlease and Probuild with the union.

She said she had spoken to small and medium sized businesses who said ‘they cannot stand up to the CFMEU, they cannot stand up to Lendlease; they cannot stand up to Probuild’.

She said the changes shortening the period that builders had to be code compliant to get Commonwealth work was designed to send a message to the union and the ‘big end of town’.

“I am not going to blame the CFMEU here, because in this game it takes two to tango,” she said.

“So I am going to lump Lendlease in there and I am going to lump Probuild in there, on Hansard. I am going to say to them: ‘The reason we are doing this is to stop your cartel-like behaviour.’”

Lendlease rejected the claims. The company struck a four year deal with the CFMEU last year that delivered 20 per cent in pay rises. It followed industrial action by the union, including unlawful action on six projects in Queensland.

“Lendlease has long supported the ABCC,’ a company spokesman said. “Lendlease does not engage in cartel-like behaviour with the unions. We continue to take whatever steps we can to remain compliant with the code. Our enterprise negotiations, under the Fair Work Act, often occur in the context of adversarial industrial activity, both lawful and unlawful.”

Changes passed by federal parliament on Wednesday night following a stunning backflip by Senate crossbencher Derryn Hinch mean builders will need to be immediately compliant with the new restrictive construction code if they want to be awarded commonwealth work.

Companies will also not be able to tender for commonwealth work from September 1 unless they have an agreement that removes a host of union-supported clauses that breach the code.

Employers have called on unions to ensure agreements were compliant “or else the jobs of thousands of their members who work on government projects will be at risk”.

But the national secretary of the CFMEU’s construction division, Dave Noonan, has flagged industry-wide stoppages across Australian building sites.

“Right across Australia, the industry­ will stop and workers will go to rallies and they will say: ‘Enough is enough’,” Mr Noonan told a rally on Wednesday. “We are going to the streets. This is the first rally. This is not the last rally.”

Electrical Trades Union national secretary Allen Hicks blasted the government and the crossbench, saying they had ‘no mandate for the legislation which will sow the seeds of industrial chaos and endanger lives’.

“The Government is hiding behind their building code to blackmail the building industry, and now power industry companies and workers, into implementing their rabid industrial relations agenda at taxpayer expense, without ever having gained a mandate from the public,” Mr Hicks said.

“This legislation will cause industrial disharmony, skilled labour shortages and increase the number of injuries and deaths of people working in power and construction.’

Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott commended the crossbench for showing ‘real political guts’ and improving the law.

Master Builders Australia chief executive Wilhelm Harnisch said “the lawlessness, intimidation and industrial thuggery that happens on building sites isn’t just an industry problem’.

‘It is everyone’s problem because taxpayers foot the bill for the delays, blowouts and days lost to strikes causing construction costs to be about 30 per cent higher than they should be,” he said.