AARON PATRICK: The outlaw-laden CFMEU is rapacious, amoral and unreformable. It must go

The “CFMEU is not a union,” Liberal senator James Patterson said on Monday. “It is a criminal enterprise.”

Anyone who watched a television report Sunday evening alleging deep infiltration of public transport projects in Victoria might agree.

Ex-policeman Peter De Santo told 60 Minutes “hundreds” of members of outlaw motorcycle gangs and their associates have been hired through connections with the CFMEU, the construction union.

Some are being paid to do little work. Just in the past few weeks, according to a barrister investigating the union, Geoffrey Watson, demands have been made to building companies for money to avoid industrial disputes. He called a State Government inquiry into the problem a “cover-up”.

Epicentre of the problem

After years essentially ignoring what looks like entrenched corruption financed by taxpayers, the Victorian Government suddenly decided to take action. On Monday, Labor Premier Jacinta Allan met her acting police commissioner, Rick Nugent, who launched an investigation into organised crime on worksites.

Why the wait, critics might ask. Evidence the CFMEU is rapacious, amoral and unreformable has persisted for decades. Victoria seems to be the epicentre of the problem, perhaps in part because the union is so politically strong in Melbourne.

The Victorian CFMEU belongs to a Labor faction which has played off the left and right sides of the party against each other, making it feared in ministerial offices.

The size of the transport projects in the State — worth maybe more than $100 billion — has generated huge financial opportunities for workers with allies in the union, which has a stranglehold over construction labour on most big sites.

Employers have given up expecting anything to change, one experienced industrial relations solicitor told The Nightly. The police do not want to police unions, the Fair Work Ombudsman’s resources and will to do so are limited, and the Federal Labor Government abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which prosecuted union abuses, soon after it won power in 2022.

“All you can do is fall into line and try to keep your head down,” said the lawyer, who advises businesses. “It doesn’t matter if you are dealing with a strong union or criminal behaviour.”

Expecting no support from government, and commercial and often personal threats if they resist, employers pay protection money. Mr Watson said the sums paid ranged from $30,000 to $600,000.

It is not just the CFMEU. In Victoria, the Electrical Trades Union has become particularly militant. After a period on the defensive in Queensland, construction unions there have become more aggressive. The problem is getting worse in NSW.

In the end, everyone pays. Unnecessarily high construction costs are passed on to taxpayers or public transport travellers.

Prospects for reform

Many of those involved in industrial relations, or who have followed the problem closely, have become cynical about the prospects for reform. Even though the construction division of the CFMEU was placed in administration last August, and many of its leaders removed, the old guard continues to fight. The motorcycle gangs have not gone away.

Sunday’s television program was an attempt by those trying to fix the problem to attract political and public support. Without strong government resolve at the State and Federal levels, for years, the industry will not be cleaned up, experts say.

On Monday, Coalition leader Peter Dutton proposed introduced US-style organised crime laws to combat the CFMEU. If prosecutors could prove “a pattern of behaviour” in law breaking, they would be able to shut down whole organisations, not just the people at the bottom caught breaking the law.

He repeated the Coalition’s long-held position that it would reintroduce the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Mr Dutton did more than promise solutions. He connected union corruption to what looks like a serious crime problem.

The teenagers breaking into suburban homes and stealing cars sell them to motorcycle gangs for cash and drugs, Mr Dutton said. The cash flow financing those gangs comes from government construction contracts, which means the CFMEU corruption is fuelling common crime across the state, according to the Liberal leader.

With polls showing Victorians feel their Labor Government has mismanaged the state, it may be a potent message in a state where the Liberal Party has been in retreat for years.