Labor, the CFMEU, and the war on small business

Mitch Browne I 28 July 2024 I The Spectator Australia

Labor governments across the country have expressed their astonishment at the revelation their mates and financiers in the CFMEU might, allegedly, include underworld figures and engage in organised crime. Who could have imagined an organisation built on bribery, kickbacks, and physical intimidation would stoop so low?

Some cynics are claiming Labor must have known the construction division of the CFMEU was corrupt. But that’s a bit harsh. The only time Labor MPs have ever been near a construction site is when they pose wearing a hard hat and hi-vis for campaign photos.

The Labor Party today has no interest in anyone who actually works in manual labour.

The CFMEU has no interest in projects being completed efficiently and cost-effectively. It makes no difference if the client is a wealthy developer or a cash-strapped local council spending public money. The union MO is to fleece the client for all they can get, then send kickbacks to the Labor Party for protection.

It is a war waged against the public interest. But that is in union DNA. From coal strikes depriving families of heating during winter, to waterfront action harming our own troops in the second world war, the union rap sheet is long and odious.

It is perhaps the more subtle misdeeds that, in accumulation, hurt society most. These go almost entirely unnoticed. One example from my own experience serves to highlight the public cost of featherbedding in the construction industry.

I was a self-employed brickie working on a new community centre for a local council in Western Sydney. I was working below ground. There wasn’t much room down there, so the materials we needed throughout the day had to be lowered by crane as we needed them. The crane was operated by union members.

I worked six days a week, but there was a public holiday on the coming Monday. No work is allowed on construction sites on public holidays. I mentioned to one of the crane operators that I was annoyed I couldn’t work on Monday.

‘Why does the government force people not to work if we want to?’ I said. ‘Why are they making me have two days off?’

‘Two days off?’ he responded.

‘Yeah. After we finish on Saturday I’ve got to take Sunday and Monday off.’

‘There’ll be no work Saturday.’ He said. ‘We’re shutting the site down for the long weekend.’

‘Three days off?’ I said.

‘No. Union Picnic Day on Tuesday.’

‘Four days off?’ I thought he was having me on now.

‘Right.’ He said. ‘And we don’t want to leave the crane on site unattended for four days, so it will have to be sent back to the yard.’

‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

‘It means you’ll have to give us Friday to pack the crane up and send it back to the yard. Then, after the Picnic Day on Tuesday, you’ll have to give us Wednesday to get the crane back from the yard and set it all up again before you can start work.’

So in the end, because there was a public holiday on the Monday, work had to stop on the Thursday, and couldn’t start up again until the following Thursday.

These swindlers are so adept at fudging numbers and skimming off the top that in their world, one public holiday equals an entire week of lost productivity. A week they get full pay for, while no work gets done. Remember, this was a community centre, built at public expense.

This is Labor’s world. If you’re an insider, a patched-up member of their gang, you will be looked after. Society pays the bill.

If you choose not to affiliate, well then, they have some persuasive friends who might want a chat with you in private.

As with all gangs, they will snuff out any competition on their turf. This explains Labor’s war on small business.

Employees of small business are generally not unionised. Those who are self-employed can’t join a union. This means no union fees, and no kickbacks from the union to their protection racket, the Labor Party.

It is those kickbacks from the unions that fund Labor’s election campaigns. Labor won’t end the culture of kickbacks and dodgy behaviour in the construction unions, because Labor has been one of its biggest beneficiaries. The Albanese government was produced by the Melbourne underworld.

This government has instructed the Australian Taxation Office to aggressively pursue all debts owed by small business. Their justification is that the leniency offered during the pandemic should be terminated now the good times are back.

Except, times have not been good. For many small businesses in construction, the unusually wet years following the pandemic have been tougher than the pandemic itself. In our industry, when it rains, employees get full pay to do no work (yep, that was a union idea). There have been a lot of rain days in the last three years. So it is understandable that construction businesses have been taking longer to pay off their debts. Not because they’re trying to enrich themselves, but because they’re trying to survive.

Labor’s tax office assault on small business could not have come at a worse time. Record numbers of construction businesses have collapsed already. There will be many more to come. These businesses are not being replaced. Many are leaving the industry for good. So when Labor says it is ramping up the number of houses being built in order to ease the housing affordability crisis, don’t believe it. Who does it think is going to build them?

Labor and their associates want the construction industry to be a closed-shop extortion racket. Anyone who has the audacity to set up their own small business must be brought to heel or shut down for good.

The message of the previous coalition government was: if you have a go, you’ll get a go.

The threat from Labor and its mobster trade union puppet masters is: if you dare have a go, we’ll go you.

Author: Mitch Browne