Tony Burke calls on ABCC to fully disclose dealings with builders

The Industrial Relations Minister’s letter has intensified pressure on the Coalition-appointed regulator over its dealings with builders.

Tony Burke has requested detailed information about any meetings this year between the ABCC and the building industry lobby group. Picture: AAP

Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke has called on the Australian Building and Construction Commission to fully disclose its dealings with the Master Builders in the lead-up to the federal election, intensifying pressure on the Coalition-appointed regulator.

In a letter emailed to ABCC head Stephen McBurney on Monday, Mr Burke requested detailed information about any meetings between the ABCC and the building industry lobby group during 2022.

“Please let me know if any such meetings have occurred, what was discussed and provide me with any records of such meetings to the maximum extent possible,” Mr Burke wrote in the email, a copy of which has been obtained by The Australian.

Mr Burke’s call came after The Weekend Australian revealed Mr McBurney held a “strategic” meeting with the Master Builders that discussed the federal election ahead of the May 21 poll.

Documents released by the ABCC, following a Freedom of Information request by the CFMEU, detailed meetings this year between the ABCC and Master Builders representatives.

Parts of the documents, including some details of what was discussed at the meetings as well as names of ABCC and MBA representatives, were redacted by the ABCC ahead of their release.

The Australian has confirmed Master Builders chief executive Denita Wawn attended the meeting with Mr McBurney in Canberra on February 17 this year.

In his letter on Monday, Mr Burke asked Mr McBurney to ensure the documents he submitted to the government included “to the maximum extent possible” unredacted copies of the document/s provided to the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union.

Labor intends to scrap the ABCC and its abolition could be part of an industrial relations bill to go before parliament this year.

The FOI documents, which sparked fresh union calls for Mr McBurney to resign, stated he and the Master Builders discussed “key upcoming issues” at the February meeting, including the “forthcoming election” and the “implications for the building code”, which Labor had promised to scrap if it were to win power.

ABCC and Master Builders representatives also met in Tasmania in April, discussing the “MBA election campaign” in support of retaining the ABCC and “how it would be similar to the last election running with the union bullying theme”.

Master Builders made prominent interventions in the run-up to the election, funding a national advertising campaign against Labor’s plan to scrap the ABCC, and ­labelling it an act of “economic self-harm”.

It released research claiming the ABCC’s abolition would deliver a $50bn hit to the economy.

According to an ABCC record of the April 6 meeting, the MBA representative, whose name was redacted, told the regulator the industry group’s campaign “would also support the keeping of the ABCC and they would be taking an economic/productivity argument with this approach”.

The ABCC assistant director, whose name was also redacted, emailed the Master Builders providing links of CFMEU social media posts attacking the ­regulator.

Master Builders sent back copies of its election ads in support of the ABCC and the ­Coalition retaining the agency, including one that said “vote for the party with the best plan for economic recovery, that will back builders and tradies”.

Asked about the Tasmanian exchanges, Mr McBurney told The Australian last week that “none of that was brought to my attention”.

Mr McBurney said he was prepared to “give an explanation” to Mr Burke about the February 17 meeting, which he called a “stakeholder engagement meeting”.

He said the “forthcoming election” bullet point in the document related to him telling stakeholders the election was due by May; that the ABCC would enter caretaker mode when the election was called and compliance activities would continue largely unaffected.

The ABCC record of the ­February 17 meeting referred to the research undertaken by the Master Builders where the ABCC and the code were the “subject of questions”.

Mr McBurney said the Master Builders’ advertising campaign was not discussed at the meeting and he found out about the ads when they were publicly released in April.