CFMEU $306k penalty challenge rejected by High Court

The High Court has refused the construction union special leave to appeal a decision that imposed $306,000 fine for the unlawful conduct of Dave Hanna.

Former CFMEU boss Dave Hanna, who refused to leave a work site and squirted water in the face of the site manager. Picture: AAP

The High Court has refused the construction union special leave to appeal against a Full Federal Court decision that imposed maximum penalties of $306,000 on the union for the unlawful conduct of its former Queensland President Dave Hanna.

The High Court ordered the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union pay the Australian Building and Construction Commission’s legal costs of defending the special leave application.

The Federal Circuit Court last year imposed the maximum penalty of $306,000 on the CFMEU following Mr Hanna contravening right of entry laws at a Fortitude Valley construction site and threatening to bury a mobile phone down a site manager’s throat.

At the time of the incident in February 2015, Mr Hanna refused to leave the site, squirted water in the face of the site manager and at his mobile phone and said: “take that phone away or I’ll f..ing bury it down your throat”.

Federal Circuit Court Judge Salvatore Vasta described the union as “the most recidivist corporate offender in Australian history”.

Describing the union’s history of law-breaking as “astounding”, he said he would have imposed higher penalties on the union if the law allowed.

In August this year, the full Federal Court upheld the decision, with Justice John Logan comparing the CFMEU’s “systemic unlawful conduct” with the unlawful behaviour of the deregistered Builders Labourers Federation.

Mr Hanna resigned from the union in 2015 after an investigation found he obtained thousands of dollars from employers to pay for the IVF treatment of a union organiser and his partner.

Mr Hanna, who had claimed he resigned for health reasons, quit as the union’s national and Queensland president after a union probe found he procured funds from two subcontractors to contribute to the cost of IVF treatment undergone by organiser, Mick Myles.

ABCC head Stephen McBurney said the High Court’s refusal to grant special leave vindicates the position of the ABCC. “I will continue to seek the imposition of maximum penalties in appropriate cases to deter repeat offending by the CFMEU and others,’’ he said.