How the CFMEU’s Dave Noonan outplayed Hinch on the ABCC bill

The Human Headline has allowed the CFMEU’s Dave Noonan to snatch victory from the jaws of an ABCC defeat.

Justice Party Senator Derryn Hinch leaves after a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra yesterday. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

When the chief of the CFMEU Dave Noonan strode into Parliament House this week he looked beaten. Industry Minister Michaelia Cash had done a masterful job of locking in crossbench support to restore the legislation to introduce the commercial building code and the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

But when the ABCC bill passed, Noonan had achieved an amazing victory that was lost on most of the community. While Cash has also achieved a remarkable victory for the Turnbull government, Noonan has negotiated himself a second chance.

In particular, he showed how two of the most inexperienced Senators in the House — WA’s One Nation Senator Rod Culleton and my long time journalistic friend Derryn Hinch — could be conned.

I’m afraid that in a few misguided hours Hinch has cost Victorians at least $1bn and possibly a lot more. I won’t estimate the cost to the nation.

Paradoxically, WA taxpayers may escape the repercussions of Rod Culleton’s vote due to the actions of the WA government (Mike Nahan’s radical appeal to the ACCC over building industry collusion, Nov 21).

Noonan is probably the most powerful force in politics outside of Parliament because two of our major parties, the Greens and the ALP, are very dependent on his financial support. They will have told Noonan that Cash had done too good a job gaining support for the ABCC bill so it could not be blocked.

But what if the key impact could be deferred until after the 2018 election?

After all, the CFMEU’s ALP is ahead in the opinion polls and there are two Coalition nasties ahead — the complete stuff up of the pension assets test and the imminent closure of the motor industry (A bumpy 2017 ride awaits the Turnbull government, November 24).

And, so, deferral of key parts of the ABCC impact until after the 2018 election became top of Noonan’s agenda. And he won.

But Noonan could never have achieved his victory but for the support of the South African-owned Probuild. Some believe Lendlease was at Noonan’s side in his “win”. That’s not true. It was Probuild. Lendlease were shattered.

Let me tell you the story.

But, first, a confession:

These days, Derryn Hinch and I move in different circles but way back in my Chanticleer days I was also a director of Fairfax’s 3AW radio station in Melbourne.

The station was in deep trouble and required rescuing and we decided to recruit Derryn Hinch to the lagging morning spot. In his first ratings period he was down on his predecessor. My job was to keep up his morale. It wasn’t hard because Hinch was brilliant and played a key role in restoring the radio station.

My role became to support him in overturning pre-election media gagging but make totally sure the station’s licence was not jeopardised. We both won.

Derryn knows communication backwards and he uses that knowledge brilliantly in the Parliament. But in dealing with powerful lobby groups, Derryn is inexperienced. Dave Noonan was just too good.

It’s important to understand the current commercial building mess that adds 20 to 30 per cent to the costs of hospitals, schools, infrastructure and (in Victoria) apartments.

Michaelia Cash managed to convince the cross benchers that the citizens of the nation should not have to pay such outrageous amounts. But it’s not just a union problem — many of the big builders use the system brilliantly so it’s worth recording the current arrangements.

Under the present code, large builders tender for contracts and if they win they then dictate to their subcontractors an enterprise bargain agreement. Not only does that enterprise bargain agreement dictate that rostered days off should be synchronised so the whole industry shuts down but it gives union officials veto powers over management decisions.

In addition, all subcontractors are required to, one way or another, pay large sums to the unions, which in turn pass a good slab of that money to the ALP and the Greens. Conversely, subcontractors who do not employ union-approved people are not allowed on site.

Those subcontractors would happily walk past a bulky and aggressive union official — they are well able to look after themselves — but they dare not go on site because the enforcers are the large building companies.

All the large builders, including Lendlease, lobbied hard for there to be a transition time to avoid problems. They convinced the crossbenchers and Cash that the industry needed six months — nine months maximum. And so the draft legislation had the building code coming into operation at the end of September 2017. Dave Noonan’s aim was to extend that date to November 29, 2018.

Derryn Hinch has a gatekeeper, John Clements, who often also gives Rod Culleton a hand.

John Clements worked for Tony Windsor, who ran at the election against Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. Noonan knew where to strike. His argument was that unless there was a two-year transition there would be chaos and he used Probuild people to back him up. They may have been able to quote the support of other builders.

But that postponement means that Melbourne’s $5bn Western Distributor and the $11bn Metro rail projects will be tendered in the delay period.

Sydney’s central station may also come up for tender before November 2019.

These are huge projects and that means that the ABCC two-year delay becomes a five- or six-year delay. Fortunately, the Western Distributor and Metrorail projects involve capital intensive tunnelling, which limits the union-builder imposed costs and NSW has its own code.

After Noonan and Probuild had convinced Hinch and Culleton, the pro-ABCC forces could not get past Hinch’s gatekeeper to explain that two years for Victoria and NSW was really much longer.

Cash had no choice but to agree because with Culleton and Hinch voting against the bill she did not have the numbers.

At least the delay mechanisms are restricted to enterprise agreements. Payments to unions are banned and the head contractor can’t dictate new enterprise agreements with subcontractors. But Noonan and the big builders who are close to him will have worked out how to make life hard for Nigel Hadgkiss at the ABCC. But he is also a tough operator.