A day after Labor and the Coalition agreed on a bill to put the CFMEU under administration, Denita Wawn, CEO of Master Builders Australia, said this is just the beginning.
Speaking to Canberra radio 2CC, Wawn said they will now advocate for “a bigger, better regulator.”
“By the time the CFMEU gets out of administration, we should have laws that ensure these types of things just don’t happen again. Four Royal Commissions have called for it, and we’ll continue to call for it,” she said.
The comments in response to the federal Parliament’s joint efforts to put the union under administration following damning allegations that the CFMEU’s Victorian construction branch employed bikies and people with criminal ties as union delegates. Allegations of corruption in the New South Wales branch surfaced soon after.
Wawn also supported reviving the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton has introduced several private members’ bills to reinstitute the ABCC. However, the government believes that the ABCC doesn’t have the teeth it needs to regulate the system effectively.
“Certainly, from our perspective, the ABCC was good, but it didn’t go far enough. The ABCC only looked after industrial relations laws, and we’ve seen from all the media reports in the last month or two that this is more than that. This is about criminal behaviour. This is about anti-competitive behaviour,” Wawn said.
She also referred to the four Royal Commissions that indicated that the industry needed a special regulator with more authority.
“So, bizarrely enough, the Government and the Coalition are both right. We need to combine their thinking and make sure that we do get the special regulator that we really deserve,” she said.
Labor’s legislation, which imposes a minimum three-year administration period for all construction union branches and enforces a lifetime ban on criminal officials, gained opposition support after initially stalling in the Senate.
The law grants the minister the authority to place the union’s construction and general division into administration, extending the period to five years based on the administrator’s recommendation.
The opposition’s backing was secured after demanding a clear ban on donations and political campaigning during the administration and requiring the administrator to appear before a Senate committee.
Wawn also addressed the topic of union membership in the building industry, revealing that membership rates in the sector are consistent with those in the broader private sector.
“From a private sector point of view, it sits at around about 8–10 percent. That is pretty consistent with private sector union membership, so it’s low,” she noted.
Wawn emphasised the importance of compliance with the law and proper representation by all organisations, whether unions or employer associations.
“We would hope that every single organisation, whether they’re employers or unions, are complying with the law, representing their members in the best interest possible, and doing the best thing for the industry that we all work for.”
