Bill Shorten should cut Labor’s affiliations with the CFMEU

Video footage of Bill Shorten delivering a rousing speech to striking CFMEU workers at the Oaky North coalmine.

When it comes to having contempt for industrial laws, there is no better example than the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union. “It is no understatement to describe the CFMEU as the most recidivist corporate offender in history,” said Federal Circuit Court judge Salvatore Vasta in October 2017.

“The CFMEU has accumulated a deplorable record of contravening civil remedy provisions of the Act and its predecessors,’’ said Federal Court judge Richard Tracey this week in imposing $105,000 in penalties for the union’s unlawful “no-ticket, no start’’ policy.

A survey by the Master Builders Association of the ACT in 2015 of its members revealed that of the 101 polled, 71.8 per cent and 41 per cent alleged verbal and physical intimidation respectively by the CFMEU on Canberra building sites.

If you think the MBA members are being alarmist, think again. “Let me give a dire warning to the ABCC [Australian Building and Construction Commission] inspectors: be careful what you do,’’ threatened CFMEU Victorian state secretary John Setka in June 2017, addressing a rally of 20,000 unionists. “You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to expose them all.”

“We will lobby their neighbourhoods. We will tell them who lives in that house. What he does for a living, or she. We will go to their local football club. We will go to the local shopping centre.”

“They will not be able to show their faces anywhere. Their kids will be ashamed of who their parents are when we expose all these ABCC inspectors.”

This is the same union that, during the last election alone, donated $685,000 to the Australian Labor Party. What was the party’s cash cow has become a rampaging bull. So what did Opposition Leader Bill Shorten do in response to these threats? “I and federal Labor disassociate ourselves from the remarks which were made,’’ he said. His “repudiation’’ of Setka’s remarks, he maintained, was made in the “strongest possible terms.”

CFMEU Victorian state secretary John Setka, centre. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

You would think the strongest possible terms would involve severing Labor’s affiliations with the CFMEU as former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Bob Hawke have demanded, but apparently not. As revealed this week by The Australian, Shorten, not four months after Setka’s remarks, gave a rousing speech to striking CFMEU workers at the Oaky North coalmine.

Accompanied by the Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Brendan O’Connor (brother of CFMEU national secretary Michael O’Connor), Shorten saved his castigation for the labour laws, not those who revelled in breaking them.

“We now have a situation where the laws of this land are being distorted; where they are being mutated; where they’re being metastasised, like a cancer,” he said. “We will change laws if we form a government or when we form a government.” Which government does Shorten think introduced the Fair Work Act? (Hint, it took effect in 2009).

“You should also say to your families that Bill and Brendan have the highest respect for the mining and engineering division of the CFMEU,” continued Shorten. “These people will be with you the whole way, always have been and always are, always will be. If we form a government, yeah, we’ll do the right thing, we won’t let you down. The privilege for us today is to be in your company.”

In saying that, Shorten appears to condone the CFMEU’s lawbreaking. Bill and Brendan will always be with you? The fawning is comical, and reminiscent of that old BBC children’s television show The Flowerpot Men featuring the two little puppets Bill and Ben. Think of the CFMEU as the noxious weed in the garden and you will get the gist, as demonstrated in one episode. “Hello little weed”, say Bill and Ben excitedly and affectionately as they pat it.

If ever there was evidence of a cancer within the labour movement, it revealed itself only four days after Shorten’s visit when CFMEU protesters allegedly threatened to rape the children of those who crossed the Oaky North picket line. Is there anything more despicable than targeting the children of people merely trying to earn a living for their family?

Nonsensically, the then president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Ged Kearney, tried to shift the blame to the mine’s owners. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for Glencore’s behaviour,” she said. Kearney of course is Labor’s candidate for Batman. If she is successful, it is to be hoped with attitudes like hers that she never gets a shadow portfolio involving the welfare of children.

As for Shorten’s record on labour laws, it is one of obfuscation and oscillation. In the run-up to the 2016 election he announced Labor would accept the Fair Work Commission’s impending decision concerning a review of penalty rates for hospitality and retail workers. He reneged in February 2017 following the FWC’s decision to cut Sunday and public holiday rates. “We will do everything in our power in the parliament and the courts to remedy this bad decision,” he stated. Who does he think was the Minister for Workplace Relations who had overseen the changing of the Fair Work Act to ensure the FWC regularly reviewed penalty rates? (Hint, he is the member for Maribyrnong).

Shorten’s love affair with workers’ penalty rates has come late in life. He had no such infatuation with them in 1998, when as the Victorian state secretary of the Australian Workers Union, he signed off on an enterprise bargaining agreement with cleaning company Cleanevent that ended workers’ evening and weekend penalty rates. Can you imagine the effect on already lowly-paid cleaners, who perform the majority of their work outside business hours and on weekends? The reduction left around 5000 employees with a shortfall of around $400 million. Shorten’s influence was greatly enhanced by the agreement in that employees automatically joined the AWU upon employment unless they opted out. As AWU national secretary in 2004 Shorten rolled over this EBA, and did the same in 2006. Yet he maintains in spite of this that he intended at all times to act in the best interest of the workers.

In an interview for this month’s edition of men’s magazine GQShorten was asked whether he was opportunistic. His answer was revealing. “I’m ambitious and opportunistic ... for Australia,” he replied, perhaps not realising the literal meaning being he would be a demagogue. Did Julia Gillard suffer from sexism within her own party? “I’ve always been a bit of a supporter of hers,” he replied, conveniently omitting that his was one of the votes that ousted Gillard as prime minister in June 2013 and restored Rudd.

Builders Labourers Federation general secretary Norm Gallagher left, with then ACTU president Bob Hawke in the 1970's.

Was it not true that Shorten lied about that coup? “I didn’t lie,” protested Shorten. “I’m not going to say that. But I kept my mouth shut.” Really? In an excruciating interview with 3AW radio presenter Neil Mitchell on 21 June 2013 — only five days before Gillard was toppled — Shorten said “I haven’t spoken to Kevin Rudd about the leadership.” Except that he had met with Rudd and done exactly that only two days before, which he finally admitted in 2015 when caught out. “The Labor Party was bitterly divided and certainly I didn’t want to put any more fuel on that fire,” he rationalised, conceding that he had lied. Now he claims he did not lie. Is there any wonder he has a credibility problem?

As for Labor, it shows no sign of even distancing itself from the CFMEU. If anything it is embracing the union. In December 2017 WA Deputy Premier Roger Cook presented CFMEU boss Joe McDonald with a Labor Party award for outstanding service, despite the latter’s numerous convictions for offences including assault, trespass, contempt of court, and industrial breaches. Expelled in 2007 from the party by Rudd, Cook was re-admitted in 2013. That same year he was fined $30,500 after he grabbed a worker by the neck who was attempting to cross the picket line, and threatened him with his fist.

Delivering his findings in the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption in 2015, commissioner Dyson Heydon observed that misconduct in the union movement was “widespread,” “deep-seated,” of “great variety,” and at all levels in the hierarchy. “It would be utterly naive to think that what has been uncovered is anything other than the small tip of an enormous iceberg,” he said.

Does Shorten have the mettle — as did former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke, who deregistered the rogue and corrupt Builders Labourers’ Federation — to address this? Based on his record, there is no chance. At best his attitude is laissez-faire, as evident by his incessant and feeble platitudes that he has a “zero tolerance” of criminality in the workplace.

In his recent interview with GQ, Shorten was asked what mundane tasks he performed at home. “Taking the bins out, cleaning up after two bulldogs,” he said. “That is a task that the family resolutely leaves to me.” What of the bulldogs in Labor’s backyard? The stench emanating from there would rival that of the Augean Stables, and very few in the party — especially its leader – appear capable of acknowledging it, let alone acting on it.