CFMEU official video fires up IR reform row

An incendiary video of a belligerent union official appears certain to trigger a new political storm over IR.

An incendiary video of a belligerent union official appears certain to trigger a new political storm over industrial relations as Malcolm Turnbull accuses Bill Shorten of resisting reform because he is beholden to the unions.

UPDATE: PM highlights union behaviour to push his case for a building watchdog. Follow our live coverage in PoliticsNow.

The video of a Gold Coast building site shows an angry union representative threatening a supervisor before driving off in a union vehicle that knocks over a safety barrier.

“You know what? I know your phone number. I know where you live,” the union representative says to the supervisor, in a stand-off over right to enter the Grocon site. The man is wearing high-vis clothing with the logo of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the primary target of the government bill to restore a stronger industrial regulator across the building industry.

While the identities of the participants is unknown, the video ­appears to have been taken by the supervisor or his colleagues at the site where Grocon was building part of the athlete’s village for the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Furious that he does not have an automatic right to enter the site, the CFMEU man strides toward the supervisor in an apparent attempt to intimidate him.

The CFMEU delegate then ­ridicules the power of the federal government’s Fair Work Building and Construction regulator, and its director Nigel Hadgkiss, to act against the union in any dispute.

“Go f..k yourself. Film it. You and Nigel Hadgkiss, the f..king taskforce, go f..k yourselves mate,” the man says.

“Because you know what, I got a lot more f..king money and loyal people.”

While the events leading up to the video are unknown, the scenes lend weight to government’s claims of union bullying and the need to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission to act on the problem. Mr Turnbull told parliament yesterday that a tougher regulator had to be set up by law to halt CFMEU “thuggery” and “lawlessness”.