CFMEU says ‘business as usual’ on Tasmanian building sites including Bridgewater Bridge

The Tasmanian secretary of the embattled CFMEU has sent a letter to local members saying it is business as usual here. Read what he had to say.

Union secretary Richard Hassett in front of the crane. Bolts and other metal parts fell from the crane stopping work at Parliament Square. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

The CFMEU says it’s “business as usual” in Tasmania with work continuing by hundreds of members on the Bridgewater Bridge and other building sites across the state – and leader Richie Hassett says “strong unions come under attack”.

Mr Hassett, who has been on annual leave, told the Mercury his phone had “run hot for two days” but said the union was used to being attacked.

In a letter to Tasmanian members only, he defended disgraced CFMEU boss John Setka saying he was “extremely grateful” for his support since Tasmania amalgamated 10 years ago.

“It’s business as usual to be honest, nothing changes, everyone’s piling on but we’re used to it,” Mr Hassett said.

“There’s no issues in Tasmania. If we stop turning up people will start dying.”

The Bridgewater Bridge has 350-400 CFMEU members working on it, he said, with other members working on construction sites “all across the state”.

Mr Hassett said the CFMEU covered all commercial construction sites, “as well as some mine employees, brewery workers, labour hire and civil contractors”.

New Bridgewater Bridge. Picture: Caroline Tan

In his letter to members, he said “nobody is perfect, the great thing about our industry is we do not judge individuals on previous indiscretions”.

“The only thing John is guilty of is always putting members before anything else, here in Tasmania wages in the past decade have increase in the vicinity of 65 per cent under John’s leadership, leadership that has always been outcome based for members first,” he wrote.

“As an official of the Vic - Tas Branch and someone who has been a member for over 25 years, one thing I have always understood is that strong representation will always come under attack.

“A number of the allegations made are completely false, no union officials are members of motorcycle gangs, actually what was left out is that a number of officials in Victoria have over the years come under attack physically by these people just for trying to represent members on site around OHS.”

Mr Hassett, the Tasmanian branch secretary, said he had confidence in national secretary Zach Smith to investigate allegations and “should there be any validity then the appropriate action will no doubt be taken”.

He said while Mr Setka had been a “polarising leader” strong unions would always be attacked “which he has taken on the chin every step of the way”.

“Our union has continued to grow as members see the benefits of bargaining collectively under the banner of the CFMEU, this will not change.”

Industry Minister Eric Abetz said Labor leader Dean Winter must direct the Labor Party to repay “the hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations it has received from the CFMEU”.

“His failure to do so reveals he is weak, and beholden to the disgraced union,” he said.

Mr Winter said the day after “shocking allegations” were aired he asked for the immediate suspension of the CFMEU construction division from the Tasmanian Labor Party.

“If the state government is aware of any allegations against the CFMEU locally, they should have these allegations investigated as is occurring in other states,” he said.