Follow the money... Labor & the unions

Judith Sloan I 24 August 2024 Spectator Australia

There is a rumour going around that, prior to the CFMEU revelations hitting the press, Prime Minister Albanese was planning to call an early election.? The argument was that the Reserve Bank couldn’t be relied on to play ball by quickly cutting the cash rate, which would flow onto lower mortgage rates, and so it was better to go sooner rather than later. The possibility of a rate hike later in the year spooked Albo even more.

But when all that grubby info about the CFMEU activities, including the links with criminal and motorcycle gangs, came out, the timing suddenly seemed all wrong. Albo and his team now have to feign surprise about the CFMEU revelations and make some progress – OK, be seen to make some progress – cleaning up the operations of the CFMEU.

Let’s face it, this is a cruel development for many Labor parliamentarians, including Albo himself. The CFMEU is a union from the left and a generous one at that. Millions of dollars have been handed over to Labor and individual members over the years – thanks very much. The union’s control of delegates also guarantees powerful influence over pre-selection contests, with winners never forgetting the favours granted.

Unsurprisingly, the Labor government’s first legislative attempt to appoint an administrator to run the CFMEU – the union had declined to voluntarily accept this arrangement – was utterly spineless. Some of the union’s state branches were excluded, the minister had wide authority to release the union from administration, there was to be no public accountability of the administrator to the parliament and political donations were not explicitly banned.

Of course, the Greens were never going to go along with the legislation – that party has been in bed with the CFMEU for many years and has accepted donations in a number of states. If you believe the propaganda of the Greens, the officials of the CFMEU are simply acting in the best interests of their members and ensuring safe working conditions.? If you believe that, you also believe in the tooth fairy.

Mind you, the CFMEU isn’t going down without a fight. The officials were happy to spend members’ money on a full-page advertisement published in a number of newspapers, including the Australian, no less. With the title, ‘Government Stitch-Up. A Direct Attack on Workers’ Rights!’, the open letter from the New South Wales branch is the normal incoherent rant you would expect from a bunch of poorly educated lefties.

My favourite sentence is, ‘Our union has consistently championed safe working conditions and robust Enterprise Bargaining Agreements, not in a confrontational (sic) manner, but through strong negotiations around the boardroom table.’ Sure.? Mind you, this is a beauty: ‘As Australia’s strongest union, we find ourselves targeted simply for fulfilling our responsibility to advocate for our members.’

Now that B2 has moved on to sort out the immigration mess, the responsible minister is some unknown senator named Murray Watt, who was previously chief of staff to Labor Queensland premier, Anna Bligh. He has all the charisma of an insurance broker, but from Labor’s point of view, he says the right things.

(In his previous role as Minister for Agriculture, he implemented the ban on live sheep exports, a decision that may cost Labor some seats in Western Australia. But it was part of a preference deal with minor parties that was done during the Aston by-election campaign; this was the price that had to be paid.)

If you were to believe Watt’s blather, the problems in the construction industry are as much the fault of the contractors and subcontractors as they are of the CFMEU. According to his distorted logic, if you are being blackmailed and you pay the bribe – in this case, to stay in business and make payroll – both parties are equally responsible. Oh, please!

Watt would also have us believe that the actions of the CFMEU haven’t driven up the cost of home building, even though the increase in the cost of home building has been nearly four times the rate of inflation over the past four years. How Watt can possibly conclude that having workers paid way over the odds – minimum annual wage of $150,000, three days of work per week – won’t impact building costs?

While the Coalition had been holding up the passing of Watt’s Bill – fair enough, given its proposed amendments – one way or another it was always likely to go through. Labor really had no choice but to be seen to be acting on the degenerate ways of the CFMEU, even if the longer-run impact of having an administrator is highly uncertain. Depending on how purposeful the administrator is, it could easily end up a wet-lettuce scenario – an outcome that would not really displease Albo.? To have any chance of being effective, the administrator must be directly accountable to the parliament.

After years of looking the other way, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has finally decided to take action in relation to governance concerns of Cbus, the very large industry superannuation fund covering the construction industry. Apra has always been completely useless in relation to this issue, refusing to investigate dubious expenditures by industry funds as well as highly unusual board arrangements.

The irony is that the trustees of the industry super funds get all high and mighty about the governance of listed companies in which their funds invest – limited tenure, female representation, holding the ‘correct’ view and the like. But when it comes to their own governance, the rules are completely different.

Don’t you love the fact that Dave Noonan, one of the CFMEU representatives on the Cbus board, served for fifteen years between 2006 and 2021, but has since been reappointed in April 2023? According to the Cbus chairman, Wayne Swan (he is regarded as an independent director even though he is president of the Australian Labor party – pause for chortle), has declared that Noonan is ‘one of the nation’s most accomplished super fund trustees’.

Apart from attending a lot of superannuation fund meetings, it’s not clear what qualifications Noonan actually brings to the job – he certainly has no direct experience in funds management. Mind you, there was one chap on the Cbus board who bravely declared his qualification as BA (incomplete).

The bigger picture here is that following the money trail between the unions and Labor necessarily involves the industry super funds that are tightly controlled by the unions. The fact that the hapless Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, tried to exempt the industry super funds from disclosing their spending on items such as donations and marketing tells us a lot. His argument was that it would be too much trouble and costly for these funds, even though they control billions of dollars of investment.

While the CFMEU has been able to keep its membership at high levels, many other unions – teachers, nurses and ambos, aside – have struggled to prevent large number of members quitting and potential recruits have failed to heed the call. The industry super funds are now as integral to Labor’s money trail as the unions themselves.

Author: Judith Sloan