Stacey Schinnerl was the first woman to lead AWU. Then a death threat arrived from CFMEU rivals

One of Queensland’s pioneering female union leaders said she received a death threat from rivals in the CFMEU as part of what she believed was a campaign of intimidation to force her union off sites across the state.

Stacey Schinnerl told an inquiry in Brisbane today that she was the target of the construction union from the time she was elected the first female secretary of the Queensland Australian Workers’ Union in 2022 because she might “be easy to roll with enough pressure applied — I might just give up” as a woman.

After a campaign of harassment against AWU officials over the following year, she received a message from the CFMEU’s construction division that “if I stick my head up, it will get knocked off,” she told the inquiry. “I took that to be a threat on my life,” she said.

Asked if she thought her family was at risk, Ms Schinnerl struggled to maintain her composure as she said: “Very much so. Absolutely.”

Little police interest

Ms Schinnerl’s testimony to the inquiry being conducted by senior lawyer Stuart Wood KC adds to evidence that the CFMEU used violence and intimidation as part of a campaign to take control of building sites in Brisbane and elsewhere in the state, including large government projects, from around 2020 to 2024, when the federal Labor government removed the union’s leaders.

The CFMEU’s two main leaders at the time, Michael Ravbar and Jade Ingham, have not had a chance to respond to the allegations and The Nightly is not suggesting that they have committed any crimes.

Ms Schinnerl contacted the Queensland Police Service for help but they seemed uninterested in the conflict between the two unions. A few months after the alleged death threat, Ms Schinnerl said she learnt the police service had negotiated a memorandum of understanding with the Office of Industrial Relations over policing work sites.

“When we made contact with police, we were cautioned that without evidence (video, names etc) or a willingness to stand up in Court there would be little point in making complaints,” she told the inquiry in a written statement. “The QPS generally showed little interest. Eventually, we ceased making contact with them.”

Other witnesses had told the inquiry that CFMEU members boasted that the police would never intervene in conflicts on worksites and that the CFMEU intimidated or exercised control over inspectors from the Office of Industrial Relations.

The agreement between the two government agencies was changed after Ms Schinnerl raised it with then premier Steven Miles last year, she said.

Big builder

The death threat was made to Ms Schinnerl after a confrontation in July, 2023, at a site of Brisbane’s Cross River Rail when an AWU organiser’s car was surrounded by masked CFMEU members, one of whom may have brandished a knife. The car’s tyres were deflated and he was told to stay in the vehicle.

Despite the physical risk, Ms Schinnerl said she went to the site with other AWU officials to check on their organiser. The death threat was made the following day, she said.

Ms Schinnerl and other witnesses have said AWU officials were followed, verbally abused and had their cars plastered with anti-AWU stickers. In one incident, Ms Schinnerl was confronted at a May Day family picnic by a man who verbally abused her in front of her 13-year-old son.

Ms Schinnerl was also critical of one of the state’s bigger building companies, CPB Contractors, which build train stations and a rail tunnel for the government. Shortly after the AWU organiser’s car was surrounded by CFMEU members, Ms Schinnerl said she had a meeting with CPB managers and Mr Ravbar and Mr Ingham from the CFMEU that she was told was to discuss workplace safety.

Instead, CPB agreed to hire workers linked to the CFMEU and stop checking the identity of workers on the building site. “It is unclear to me how any of these demands were directly related to resolving the safety issues,” she said in her written statement.

When Ms Schinnerl raised the safety of AWU officials who had a legal right to access the site, she said CPB’s chief operating officer, Don Jonson, said: “What happens outside the gate is not my problem. I’m not getting involved.”

Mr Ravbar and Mr Ingham smirked, she said.