Bill Shorten’s links with CFMEU ‘are hurting Labor’

Members of his frontbench claim the Labor leader’s deals with construction union officials risk damaging the party’s brand.

The CFMEU is seen as a key player in helping Bill Shorten shore up his leadership. Picture: Mathew Farrell

Bill Shorten’s closeness to the construction union is fanning discontent among members of his frontbench who claim the Labor leader’s “transactional” deals with its rogue officials risk damaging the party’s brand.

With the federal election possibly 12 months away, several senior Labor MPs from the Opposition Leader’s shadow cabinet say his ­efforts to consolidate his numbers inside the ALP by forging ever-stronger ties with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and its Victorian leader, John Setka, are a negative for voters.

They say Mr Shorten’s pact with the CFMEU — which began with written undertakings he gave in return for its support when he first became leader in 2013 — has turned into a relationship of dependence.

The CFMEU is seen as a key player in helping Mr Shorten on immigration policy, a revised factional alignment in his Victorian ALP powerbase and an attempt at blocking ALP national president Mark Butler’s bid for a second term.

Close to half of federal Labor’s 21-member shadow ministry is understood to have concerns that CFMEU demands have been ­expanding since Mr Shorten’s agreed — in return for a CFMEU pledge of support — that an ALP government he led would scrap the nation’s building industry regulator, the ABCC.

While details were still to emerge, it seemed clear to some that the CFMEU wanted the return of industry-wide pay claims, an almost unfettered right to strike and an end to hefty court fines for lawlessness on building sites.

“Everything is transactional,” a senior frontbencher said. “The CFMEU doesn’t hand out ice-creams for free. I’d expect more, and Bill Shorten has one response to a request. It’s ‘yes’.”

Another said it was clear the CFMEU had staked its claim on certain safe seats in Victoria as a condition of supporting Mr Shorten under a working agreement devised in December.

“No doubt the CFMEU will be wanting its pound of flesh,” one frontbencher told The Australian.

A spokeswoman for Mr Shorten did not respond to a request for comment about his CFMEU ties. The CFMEU was his adversary when he led the Australian Workers Union.

There is no imminent destabilisation campaign against Mr Shorten’s leadership inside his party as its discipline remains strong, in public, with confidence high that the government can be defeated next year.

But members of Mr Shorten’s team worry he is not popular with voters and could be a drag on the ALP’s electoral ­success.

Some do not rule out leadership rumblings — especially inside the NSW ALP that has traditionally made and unmade federal party leaders. A frontbench source said: “There’s no one in the NSW right who doesn’t have a problem with him. And he wouldn’t win a ballot in the caucus if there was one held now.”

While Mr Shorten’s Victorian support base is generally behind him, there is still nervousness among several frontbenchers.

Potential contenders if Mr Shorten’s leadership did start to unravel include Anthony Albanese, who stood against him in 2013, and other NSW-based MPs Chris Bowen, Tony Burke and Tanya Plibersek. There has been speculation about a future leadership team including Victorian Richard Marles.