Labor moves to suspend ties with disgraced CFMEU

The Labor Party’s national executive has temporarily severed ties with the CFMEU’s disgraced construction division and will block its donations as it distances itself further from the powerful union following a series of bombshell allegations.

A day after Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke gave leave to the Fair Work Commission to begin the process of appointing an independent administrator to clean up the division, the ALP leadership on Thursday “unanimously resolved” to suspend the construction division’s affiliation with the NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmanian branches of the Labor Party until further notice.

The union has been engulfed in scandal this week after Nine newspapers revealed bikies and underworld criminal figures had allegedly infiltrated the Victorian branch of the construction division.

Allegations of bribery have also been raised against figures in the NSW branch.

ALP national secretary Paul Erickson said the alleged conduct of several officials and delegates within the division failed to act in the best interest of the union’s members.

“The No. 1 job of any union and its officials is to look after its members. The reported behaviour is the complete opposite of this,” Mr Erickson said.

The party also resolved not to accept levy or any affiliation fees from the division in those branches for the period of the suspension, and no political donations from them will be accepted.

Mr Erickson flagged the suspension could be extended to other branches should they also be placed into administration.

“The national executive has taken note of the general manager of the Fair Work Commission’s statement that, among other things, he is seeking advice about making an application to place the branches of the CFMEU into administration,” he said.

“The ALP national executive will consider extending the suspension of affiliation to other branches of the construction division should they be placed into administration.”

But the Coalition have criticised the Labor Party for not suspending the Queensland, Western Australia and ACT construction divisions and continuing to allow donations from those branches.

Workplace relations spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said Labor continued to be “weak” in its response to serious allegations against the union.

“There is no valid reason for carving out the Queensland, Western Australian and ACT divisions – it’s just more proof of the weak and conflicted response to this crisis,’’ she said.

This week’s allegations also prompted the powerful Australian Council of Trade Unions to suspend the construction and general division of the CFMEU, calling on the leaders to support the independent administrator appointment.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus said she and union leadership would “do what’s necessary” to clean up the CFMEU.

Mr Burke on Wednesday flagged the Government was prepared to introduce legislation to force the union’s leadership to comply with the administrator, should the CFMEU attempt to fight the court process that must precede it.

In the days since allegations of criminal infiltration emerged, the Victorian, NSW and Queensland premiers have all paused accepting donations from the beleaguered construction arm.

ACT chief minister Andrew Barr said ACT Labor would not accept donations from any branch of the CFMEU, while NSW Premier Chris Minns has moved to eject the CFMEU from the party.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says the Federal Government’s response has been “weak”, and called on Labor to deregister the union.

“The weakest possible response from Anthony Albanese would be to appoint an administrator to the CFMEU – that’s like going into one of the bikie organisations and the police saying, ‘well, let’s just change out the leadership here and put in an administrator’, and somehow the activities of the bikies will correct itself,” he said on Wednesday.

“It’s a complete nonsense. It’s an aggregation of the Prime Minister’s responsibility.”

Mr Albanese on Thursday defended the Government’s decision not to deregister, saying appointing an administrator would ultimately prove more effective at cleaning out bad actors.

“De-registration would result in the union still being able to operate but without being regulated properly. We want to make sure that we stamp out corruption, that we take action that’s effective,” he said.

In separate action, the AFP has been asked to investigate allegations of corruption, and the Fair Work Ombudsman has been tasked with investigating allegations — including coercion — relating to the enterprise agreement process made by the Victorian branch of the construction division that apply to Big Build projects.