Police raid CFMEU Queensland headquarters for evidence

Federal police have raided the CFMEU’s Queensland headquarters ahead of possible charges being laid against two veteran officials.

The CFMEU has won a temporary injunction against a federal police warrant executed in a raid on the union’s Queensland headquarters yesterday.

The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union made an urgent application to the federal court in Brisbane late yesterday arguing against the validity of the warrant.

The early morning raid came ahead of possible charges against two veteran officials allegedly involved in destroying documents subpoenaed by the trade union royal commission.

About 25 police searched the branch from 7.30am until late yesterday for potential evidence relating to the alleged burning and dumping of seven tonnes of CFMEU documents in April. Officers were also measuring the building, with phones and internet at the Bowen Hills address suspended.

Michael Ravbar, the CFMEU’s Queensland secretary, and Dave Hanna, the union’s former national president, may have committed offences under three different state and federal acts, including a Queensland criminal charge of “damaging evidence with intent’’, counsel for the royal commission argued in submissions to the inquiry published last month.

Mr Hanna told the commission during Brisbane hearings in September that Mr Ravbar ordered him to destroy documents after receiving a royal commission notice to produce.

Mr Ravbar claimed he ordered material — not relevant to the subpoena — be removed as part of a “general clean-up” after the CFMEU’s merger with the Builders Labourers Federation.

Mr Hanna, a former Queensland ALP powerbroker who suddenly resigned earlier this year as national president of the CFMEU, faces further possible charges for corruption after allegedly receiving $150,000 in free building work to his Brisbane home from a former manager at construction giant Mirvac, Adam Moore.

CFMEU construction division national secretary Dave Noonan branded yesterday’s raid “overkill” and a “waste” at a media conference in Brisbane.

The Federal Court granted the CFMEU’s application in a decision handed down in Brisbane this morning.

It’s believed police are prevented from using any material seized in the raid ahead of a court hearing scheduled on Tuesday.