New CFMEU probes to investigate bikie, criminal links
CFMEU administrator Mark Irving has commenced investigations into the construction union’s NSW and Queensland branches.
CFMEU administrator Mark Irving has begun investigations into the construction union’s NSW and Queensland branches, including any links to outlaw bikies and organised crime and whether former officials took kickbacks and secret benefits.
The Australian has obtained the terms of reference for the separate investigations that will examine the involvement of outlaw motorcycle groups and organised crime in industrial relations in the construction industry “whether on behalf of the CFMEU, on behalf of employers or as third parties”.
Both probes will investigate whether former officers and employees met their fiduciary obligations, including requirements not to misuse their positions, to declare conflicts of interest, and not to act in their own self-interest when exercising their powers.
They will also scrutinise unlawful kickbacks’ and secret benefits of any kind offered by employers to CFMEU delegates and officers connected with industrial relations, and the receipt of such benefits.
The Australian revealed last month the NSW CFMEU spent $559,000 of members’ funds on lawyers for Darren Greenfield and his son, Michael, to fight bribery charges in the two years before the union’s construction division was forced into administration.
The $559,000 of members’ funds was on top of the $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 Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt has said “stinks to high heaven”, was taken on July 19, two days after the Albanese government announced the union would be forced into administration.
The Greenfields were arrested and charged in 2021 after allegedly taking bribes from a construction firm in exchange for favourable treatment from the union. They have denied any wrongdoing.
The probe ordered by Mr Irving will examine whether the Greenfields “breached statutory obligations in relation to allegations that they allegedly received payments from employers”, and the actions of the union’s former state president Rita Mallia “in relation to this matter”.
It will also look at any financial irregularities involving the operation of multiple accounts and trusts and entities, including the use of ‘‘charity’’ trusts and similar arrangements in the conduct of industrial relations within the union.
The Queensland probe will investigate the transfer of funds or resources from the CFMEU to the company Your Union Your Choice Pty Ltd and whether former officers breached their fiduciary obligations while still engaged by the CFMEU in taking steps to establish that entity.
The probe will analyse the movement of funds, members and employment between the federally registered branch and the state registered union and the financial viability of the branch should the state registered union be deregistered.
It will also look at any use of ‘charity’ trusts and similar arrangements in the conduct of industrial relations within the CFMEU and the state registered union, and the extent to which that conduct allegedly contravened laws, involved undisclosed conflicts of interest, involved the misuse of the position, and resulted in former officers failing to act in the best interests of members.
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