CFMEU’s $1m for ‘training, charity’

The militant union has faced a royal commission grilling over ‘hidden’ payments.

Dean Hall, head of the ACT branch of CFMEU.

The construction union garnered more than $1 million into its “general revenue” across two years through enterprise-bargaining agreement clauses that were purportedly for training, charity and income protection, the royal commission into trade union corruption heard yesterday.

Dean Hall, head of the ACT branch of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, was grilled about the agreements by counsel assisting the commission, Sarah McNaughton SC.

She alleged the agreements, struck with firms in the ACT and NSW, “hid” the fact money paid by employers “facilitates financial benefits for the union itself”.

“The question arises as to whether the setting up of complex structures in relation to these three areas — training, contribution to a charity and income protection — was done deliberately to hide the CFMEU’s involvement in and/or connection with the entities or structures set up to provide these services,” she said.

Last month, the commission heard the CFMEU “applied coer­cive pressure” to employers to sign EBAs, leading to three arrests.

Yesterday, Ms McNaughton hypothesised that “significant commercial benefits flow to the CFMEU under the terms of each EBA” signed in the ACT.

The commission heard the CFMEU in turn donated funds it had raised through EBAs to the ALP and the Greens.

However, Mr Hall defended taking the money into the union’s general account. “I only operate in the interests of the members, the families ... and the communities that they live in,” he said.

“My personal view is that workers get a better deal under a Labor government, and often conservative governments have ­aggressive agendas against unions and union members and that drives down their wages and conditions, including safety.”

Under the deals, employers are bound to pay and use for training the union-linked Construction Employment Training Welfare Ltd, a trustee for Creative Safety Initiatives Trust.

Mr Hall is one of three directors of the body, which offers occupational health and safety, drug and alcohol awareness and asbestos training courses among many others. Mr Hall said he viewed his role partly as a “social worker”.

Ms McNaughton told the commission she would seek evidence as to why an insurance scheme had paid CFMEU promoters more than $200,000.

Analysis by the inquiry’s commission’s accountants showed a management fee of more than $200,000 was paid by Construction Charitable Works Limited to CETW/CSI in 2013 and 2014. “In 2013, the CFMEU-ACT received over $390,000 from CETW/CSI. In 2014, it received over $790,000. It would appear that these amounts went into the general revenue of the union,” she added.

Former Canberra Raiders rugby league star and CFMEU organiser John Lomax is to appear in ACT Magistrates Court today to face a blackmail charge. Another former official has been charged with blackmail and his alleged ­associate with perjury.