CFMEU slapped with $65m in penalties

More than $65m in legal fees and fines were levied against the CFMEU over the past 15 years.

CFMEU Victorian secretary John Setka. Picture: AAP

More than $65 million in legal fees and fines have been levied against the country’s most militant union over the past 15 years and paid for largely out of workers’ membership dues, ­according to government analysis.

More than $17m of these legal costs have been attributed to cases involving Victorian union boss John Setka, who has defied ­attempts by Anthony Albanese to have him thrown out of the ALP.

Mr Setka’s chief union ally, Electrical Trades Union Victorian secretary Troy Gray, yesterday ­declared the Opposition Leader was “digging a ditch” for his leadership over his “poor” handling of the expulsion bid, reaffirming Labor would lose access to the “honey pot” of millions of dollars of union donations if the expulsion threat succeeded.

The Coalition analysis of legal costs incurred by the Construction Forestry Mining Maritime and ­Energy Union since 2004 was ­released as Scott Morrison moves to revive the Coalition’s workplace policy changes today that would allow courts greater power to deregister unions and make it easier to ban officials for legal breaches.

Having already been forced into political retreat this week over the government’s $5 billion drought fund and national security laws, Mr Albanese will be forced to defend Labor’s position on the laws as he continues to pursue the expulsion of Mr Setka.

The government claims its bill will give courts greater scope to deregister “law-breaking unions” and take direct action against officials. A second bill deals with so-called “wage theft” by unions through worker entitlement funds.

ACTU secretary Sally Mc­Manus said the ensuring integrity bill was “an unprecedented attack on the basic rights of workers to organise and has no equivalent legislation in the Western world”.  “This government is engaging in an ideological attack on working people rather than addressing systemic theft and wrongdoing by employers,’’ she said.

The lion’s share of the estimated $65m in court penalties was dished out in Victoria ($28.6m), with 793 contraventions of workplace laws across 74 cases including coercion, contempt of court and compensation orders to employers.

The CFMEU in Queensland and the Northern Territory was forced to draw an estimated $13.9m from its funds for penalties and legal fees involving 974 contraventions of workplace laws across 27 separate cases.

In NSW, there have been 169 contraventions and 12 cases ­believed to have cost $4.5m and $2.2m in legal fees. In Western Australia, the maritime branch of the union had $12.4m in fines and fees levied against it.

In Victorian cases where Mr Setka had been named, the legal costs and penalties ran to about $17.7m, according to the analysis.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said it was “a small ­element” of the union movement that needed to be addressed.

“(But) Labor needed to explain to Australians why it considers this sort of systemic law-breaking ­acceptable and why it is appropriate for the Labor Party to continue to take $1m a year from a union that has made breaking the law an artform,” he said.

Mr Gray said Mr Albanese had alienated two of the biggest sponsors of the ALP — the CFMEU and the ETU — by moving against Mr Setka. “It’s no secret the Victorian branches of the ETU and the CFMEU are two of the largest ­donators to the ALP,’’ he said.

“We mobilise tens of thousands of people, we put out hundreds of people to door-knock and make phone calls all in support of progressive Labor, and under ­Albanese’s leadership I think there is a strong debate between the two Victorian branches whether that is the sort of progressive leadership we would support.’’

Mr Gray said the dispute should be fixed through negoti­ations and not through the courts.

“That would be the best way forward, but it appears that ­Anthony Albanese is set in his ways. I just hope he is not digging a ditch,’’ he said.