Queensland Labor Left leader shrugs off CFMEU defection

Union boss and Queensland Labor powerbroker Gary Bullock has shrugged off the CFMEU’s pre-election defection from the Left faction.

United Workers Union secretary Gary Bullock. Picture: Peter Wallis

Union boss and Queensland Labor powerbroker Gary Bullock has shrugged off rival union the CFMEU’s pre-election defection from the Left faction and taken credit for the Palaszczuk government’s push for renewables.

In an email to members of the party’s dominant Left faction, Mr Bullock and fellow Left convenor Alana Tibbitts barely lamented the defection of the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union from the faction, crowing about his United Workers Union’s success in shaping government policy on renewable energy projects.

CFMEU construction division boss Michael Ravbar blasted the ALP last week, accusing the party, particularly the Left, of walking away from its historical working-class base. Defecting from the Left, he said the government had not shown enough support for the mining or construction sectors.

Mr Bullock and Ms Tibbitts’s email listed the faction’s achievements under two terms of the Palas­zczuk government. “It is the Queensland Left that has and will continue to push for the development of a state-owned renewable energy sector and creation of a skilled workforce through the opening of the renewables training centre,” the email said.

“And it is through decades of work by members of the Queensland Left that women in Queensland now have access to abortion services without threat of criminal prosecution.”

The email also stated the Left’s aims and seemed to rejects Mr Ravbar’s suggestion the faction was anti-resources. “We continue to campaign for progressive policies and advocate for the rights of Queensland workers across all industries, including mining, manufacturing, healthcare, education, construction, transport, hospitality, and so on.

“We know that above all else, working people need Labor governments because only Labor will stand up for them.”

The email said the most immediate challenge was to win the October 31 election and the faction’s members and unions would be campaigning hard behind Labor’s candidates.

After the spectacular defection, the CFMEU‘s construction and mining divisions held a statewide teleconference on Friday to discuss what the union would do with its factional freedom.

CFMEU mining division president Stephen Smyth said the union was actively considering what role it would play in the upcoming state election campaign.

“For us, generally, we’ll be maintaining not the rage but the pressure on the government in the coming weeks, and we’ll see what transpires,” Mr Smyth said.

While the union vowed not to donate “one red cent” to the Labor Party, he said it would back veteran CFMEU member Mike Brunker in the ultra-marginal regional seat of Burdekin.

Mr Smyth, a cousin of Mr Brunker, said the union’s Friday meeting had endorsed that ­decision.

Another CFMEU-linked candidate, lawyer Ash Borg, running for the LNP-held seat of Bonney on the Gold Coast, is expected to also receive union backing.

Of Mr Bullock’s trumpeting of his and the Left’s advocacy for renewables, Mr Smyth said the union had been frustrated with the influence minority group LEAN — the Labor Environment Action Network — had on party policy.

“The LEAN in the Left want to be policy decision-makers on resources projects and it‘s just ridiculous,” he said.