SA Premier out on a limb dallying with the CFMEU

In the lead-up to this year’s South Australian election, Peter Malinauskas told The Australian his political idol was former prime minister Bob Hawke and that he too would lead a government that supported business. One of the many differences between the two men is that Hawke black-banned a militant builders union, whereas Mr Malinauskas is bankrolled by one.

Just as Hawke’s early leadership was defined by his pragmatism in standing up to striking pilots, deregistering the old Builders Labourers Federation and urging wage restraint, Mr Malinauskas risks being defined for the worse by his party’s scurrilous and senseless dealings with the Victorian branch of the CFMEU. Mr Malinauskas has been hailed as a once-in-a-generation politician but on this issue he has lost all his political faculties in failing to grasp the manifest and multiple problems with SA Labor’s acceptance of $125,000 from the Victorian CFMEU.

The first is that it invites compelling accusations of hypocrisy, given that just two months before Labor accepted the $125,000, Mr Malinauskas gave a major address promising that, if elected, he would ban union and business donations to political parties, saying they wielded unprincipled influence over governments. By accepting the donation three days shy of the March 19 election, SA Labor also undermined the authority of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

SA Labor has legitimised this union at a time when its industrial muscle is growing as it formally takes control of the SA branch. The impact of this is already being felt, with the CFMEU demanding and securing enterprise agreements with conditions never before seen in SA.

A state that historically has had none of the industrial rancour of Victoria has also witnessed an explosion in fines for right-of-entry breaches and other heavy-handed tactics by a raft of CFMEU officeholders.
As the party of Emily’s List and gender equality, it is bizarre that neither Mr Malinauskas nor seemingly anyone in SA Labor has stopped to think about the atmospherics of dealing with this outfit. The multiple court cases against local CFMEU officials point to a culture of menace and aggression, where threats and the foulest language have been directed at everyone from site managers to female company lawyers to subcontractors innocently trying to deliver materials to construction sites. Many of these men are flat out finishing a sentence without using the C-word. The union’s entire female-dominated textile division has exited the CFMEU’s headquarters in Melbourne because its leaders have been having issues with the union’s management.

Not only is SA Labor taking money from this organisation, it is even promoting it, with the CFMEU’s own lawyer, Peter Russell, appointed by the Malinauskas government to a taxpayer-funded role on its construction board. While his skills as a lawyer are beyond question, Mr Russell’s social media profile, where he poses proudly in face masks reading “F..k the Tories” and “At Least Thatcher is Still Dead”, suggests he is very much part of the CFMEU’s class war culture.

With interest rates rising, there are now dark mutterings in SA that increasing labour costs through CFMEU militancy will send major building projects to the wall. As a self-proclaimed Bob Hawke acolyte, there are two things Mr Malinauskas must do. The first is direct Labor’s SA branch to hand back the $125,000. The second is to talk to business about what can be done to protect jobs and the economy. Failing that, the SA Liberals’ failed attempts to paint Mr Malinauskas as little more than a union boss will seem belatedly compelling.