ANDREW CARSWELL: Why the Albanese Government’s condemnation of the CFMEU is entirely unbelievable

The condemnation was breathless. Lots of huffing and puffing.

From the relative safety of an ABC studio, Employment Minister Tony Burke couldn’t spew out the superlatives fast enough to show the level of his outrage.

The office thesaurus clearly had a rough morning.

Apparently, the extensive criminality and corruption allegedly undertaken by militant union the CFMEU, which was splashed across the weekend newspapers, was “absolutely abhorrent”.

It was “criminal” and “illegal”. And the “thuggery” and “bullying” by Australia’s most notorious union was “completely unacceptable”.

It was so “outrageous” that Burke got in his car — true story — drove straight to his office, and “signed” a strongly worded letter to the secretary of his department, “asking for advice”.

That will teach them.

The pen is mightier than the sword, after all. Especially when you’re dealing with bikie gangs, mobsters and stand-over men. Beware the prose of a man keen to prove his fury.

If he hadn’t fallen on his sword on Friday, CFMEU poster boy John Setka would have been trembling in his Steel Blues.

He’s a funny bloke, that Tony Burke. Bit of a talker.

So what else was he going to do to fix this crisis?

“I want to make clear — everything is on the table,’’ the Employment Minister told the ABC.

Exactly what? Well, he hasn’t got a reply to his letter yet. But just you wait.

Ironically, unions have heard those words from Burke before. But they have a different meaning now.

Spare us your false indignation.

The Albanese Government’s condemnation of the CFMEU is entirely unbelievable. It’s laughable.

How outrageous that the unions would become a law unto themselves, says he who sacked the workplace umpire, constrained regulatory powers, filled union bank accounts, and gave them unprecedented powers.

Burke’s condemnation is little more than a lament. Not at Labor’s own culpability in creating this Frankenstein’s monster of the union movement.

But at the diminished financial returns his party will receive from the union that had an annual tax free net income of $160 million last financial year.

That income is now so tainted that not even the Labor party will touch it. For a few weeks, at least. Eventually, they’ll need it.

Unions like the CFMEU largely underwrote Labor’s 2022 election victory, giving the party $16 million in direct donations and spending a further $21 million campaigning for Labor.

That funding is set to be dwarfed by the union spending in the upcoming campaign. Call it payback.

Since coming into office, the Albanese Government has systematically gone through the Australian Council of Trade Union’s wish list and ticked off the items one by one.

It abolished the Australian Building Construction Commission that was keeping union criminality in check.

It gave union officials unfettered access to work sites across the country.

It introduced draconian Same Job, Same Pay laws that forced employers to pay staff the same, no matter what level of experience, age or qualification.

It extended union delegate powers to give officials more holidays, travel and office space, paid for by businesses. It put such onerous conditions on casual employment it effectively rendered such employment too risky or costly for employers.

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And it gave unions the ability to rip millions from taxpayers and businesses under the guise of funding training programs.

The latter is the continuation of a merry-go-round of funds when Labor governments are in power — Labor funding itself from pockets of taxpayers and the tills of businesses, via the bank accounts of unions. It’s the left’s own version of trickle-down economics.

For example, the Victorian CFMEU pattern enterprise agreement requires businesses to pay $10,000 per worker, per year, straight to a CFMEU-controlled fund for unspecified training, of which it creams off massive kickbacks for itself.

John Setka once boasted that the union had these “pots of gold” in order to pay all the fines it incurred for all the laws it broke.

The most recent changes to IR laws give other unions the licence to adopt the same tactics, in what is effectively a union tax on businesses, with Labor the ultimate beneficiary.

But the most obvious form of pork-barrelling is the Albanese Government’s Productivity, Education and Training Fund, a scheme that gives money to unions and employer groups to simply engage with the government; a tradition carried from the Gillard years.

No other KPIs. Just talk to the government.

Having been abolished by the Abbott government, Albanese’s Labor quietly re-established the PET Fund in its first budget and has since allocated $88.9 million; the vast majority of which goes to unions.

In the most recent Budget, the pork increased by 150 per cent on the previous year’s pork.

Apparently, talk isn’t cheap.

Most employer groups refuse to take the money, understanding that money doesn’t come for free.

But the unions? Gimme. And of course, at the end of the day, the money eventually flows to Labor, one donation at a time.

So it is no wonder Burke is going berko at the CFMEU.

Those damned thugs are putting Labor’s business model at risk.

Andrew Carswell is a former strategist for the Morrison government.