CFMEU official re-employed despite threat to kill charges

CFMEU administrator Mark ­Irving has decided to keep ­employing Joel Shackleton, despite him being charged by police with threatening to kill an owner of an Indigenous labour hire company.

Joel Shackleton, left, in a union video and CFMEU administrator Mark Irving.

CFMEU administrator Mark ­Irving has decided to keep ­employing senior union organiser Joel Shackleton despite him being charged by police with threatening to kill an owner of an Indigenous labour hire company and losing his right to enter building sites.

Mr Irving told a meeting of Construction Forestry and Maritime Employees Union organisers in Melbourne that Mr Shackleton, who was charged after being captured on video telling the owner “I’ll f..king take your soul and I’ll rip your f..king head off”, would be employed in an ­office job with the CFMEU’s Victorian branch.

The Albanese government in August forced the CFMEU’s construction division into administration and sacked officials en masse, declaring it was shocked and disturbed at the ­alleged widespread infiltration of the union by organised crime and outlaw ­bikies.

Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt said the CFMEU scandal presented a “once in a generation opportunity” to clean up the industry after the government appointed Mr Irving as ­administrator to oversee reform of the union.

In a statement to The Australian on Wednesday, a spokesman for Mr Irving confirmed Mr Shackleton, who had been suspended on full pay from his job as CFMEU Indigenous organiser after charges were laid by Victoria Police in September, would be employed in the union’s Melbourne office.

“Until the finalisation of that court process, Mr Shackleton will be working from the CFMEU ­office and will not be exercising any right of entry to access construction sites,” he said.

“In this revised role, Mr Shackleton will continue to represent Indigenous members.”

Mr Shackleton, 40, has been bailed to appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court on November 22 and intends to plead not guilty to the charges.

Detectives from the Financial Crime Squad arrested Mr Shackleton on September 5 and he was subsequently charged with making threats to kill and threats to inflict serious injury.

Police said investigators would allege he made threats to inflict serious injury on two owners of an Indigenous labour hire company during a confrontation on a Victorian Big Build site run by contractor CPB. In the covert video recorded in March 2022, and subsequently broadcast by the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes in July, Mr Shackleton and a second CFMEU official, Gerry McCrudden, are shown having a confrontation with the owners of Marda Dandhi, which was aligned with the CFMEU’s union rival, the Australian Workers Union.

The video shows Mr Shackleton telling one owner that he would “f..king end you, c..t, and you know it, don’t f..k with me. I’ll f..king take your soul and I’ll rip your f..king head off. Don’t f..k with me, c..t.. F..k you. You’re a f..king dog.”

On September 26, the Fair Work Commission rejected a CFMEU application to ­extend Mr Shackleton’s right of entry permit, finding an extension was inappropriate while “such serious charges” were unresolved.

In his decision, commission deputy president Alan Colman said it was appropriate for him to “take into account that Mr Shackleton is the subject of criminal charges of threats to kill and to inflict serious injury”.

He noted Mr Shackleton had told the union he intended to plead not guilty and if he did, he would be entitled in the criminal proceedings to the presumption of innocence.

“However, the offences with which Mr Shackleton has been charged are very serious ones,” Mr Colman said. “Evidently, Victoria Police considers there is sufficient evidence to prosecute the matter. In my view, it is not appropriate to extend the period of an entry permit … when such serious charges against a permit holder remain unresolved.”

The CFMEU told the com­mission that after Mr Shackleton was charged, he was suspended from his employment with the union on full pay until September 27.

Mr Shackleton is the third CFMEU official facing criminal charges, with former NSW secretary Darren Greenfield and his son Michael, a former assistant state secretary, contesting bribery charges.

The Australian revealed last week the NSW CFMEU spent more than $500,000 of members’ funds on lawyers for the Greenfields to fight the bribery charges in the two years before the union’s construction division was forced into administration.

The $559,000 of members’ funds spent on legal representation for the Greenfields is on top of $3.15m of members’ funds the union agreed would be transferred to the Greenfields’ lawyers in July.

The decision to transfer the $3.15m, which Senator Watt said “stinks to high heaven”, was taken on July 19, two days after the government announced the union would be forced into administration.

The Greenfields were charged in 2021 after allegedly taking bribes from a construction firm in exchange for favourable treatment from the union. They have denied any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the CFMEU’s manufacturing division applied on Wednesday to hold a secret ballot of members to vote on whether to leave the union and become members of the stand­alone Timber Furnishing and Textiles Union.

Manufacturing division nat­ional secretary Michael O’Connor lashed out at the union’s construction division, saying there was “absolutely no benefit to our members” staying within the CFMEU. “We are a union of honest, hardworking unionists who deserve better than being associated with the CFMEU construction division,” he said.

Mr O’Connor said the demerger application came after years of growing dissatisfaction within the CFMEU by its smaller divisions, which saw the mining and energy union leave last year.

The government in June ­introduced laws ­allowing the manufacturing division to split from the broader union in response to threats by the union’s former Victorian ­secretary John Setka against the AFL.