Interview with 3AW – Darren James, Nick McCallum and Heidi Murphy

Event: Interview with 3AW – Darren James, Nick McCallum and Heidi Murphy

Date: 22 March 2026, 11.20am AEDT
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia
Topics: CFMEU

E&OE

Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia: The laws just simply aren’t strong enough to protect whistleblowers, their families and their businesses when they want to come forward in providing more evidence. We have pattrtn EBAs that have a range of clauses that are really productivity sapping. We find that we simply don’t get work done as quickly as we should. We need to stamp out cartel like behaviour. So, more needs to be done on competition laws. We need a fit and person test, and we need an industry specific regulator to make sure that the police, the regulatory agencies and the industry are all doing the right thing and abiding by the laws. So, we need everyone to step up. The Administrator of the CFMEU has done a lot of hard work, but now it’s time for governments to step up and make sure we future proof the work of the industry going forward.

Host: Can I ask you, how is a regulator different to what used to be the ABCC, or ABBC, whatever it was, that federal acronym or what have we got in Victoria now? the Building and Plumbing Commission.

Denita: Yeah, good question. So, the ABCC, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, they looked after industrial relations laws, and what happened is, they were focusing on industrial relations laws, but didn’t have powers to look after criminal behaviour, anti-competitive behaviour and so what we found is that, you know, there was a lot of finger pointing, I think, from various levels of government, saying, well if it’s on a building site with unions, then it’s an IR issue, when, in fact, it was a criminal issue or was an anti-competitive issue. So, we say that you need to strengthen laws, and then, more importantly, you need all the agencies working and being brought together to be held to account to make sure that these things don’t happen again. Need to remind your listeners, that we’ve had 40 years this year, since the Builders Labourers Federation was deregistered.

Host: The BLF.

Denita: Now with the CFMEU in Administration, we don’t want a back to the future moment yet, you know, in this country.

Host: So basically, do you trust the Federal Labor Party, the Federal Labor Government rather, and the State Labor Government to actually do any of this. Do you trust they can go in hard enough against the Union?

Denita: I’d like to say that as a political lobbyist, I don’t trust any politician after decades of being in this game but look I think…

Host: But in particular this, these, this particular issue?

Denita: Yeah, look, I think the reality is that good on the ALP Federal Government, they did put the CFMEU into Administration. That was not an easy task for them, but we’ve always said that it’s the first step, not the only step, and all governments need to be held to account about what their policies did to actually enable this, to let it fester for such a long period of time, and that comes down to things like building codes that have been put in place. We saw in Queensland, for example, they had a building code that actually empowered and emboldened CFMEU even more. So, you could say the same thing in Victoria. So, governments have got to have a good hard look at themselves in what their role has been in getting to this situation. We’ve got calm at the moment because we are at Administration, but we don’t want to go back to the bad old days. That’s why governments now got to do some hard lifting.

Host: How long do you think Administration should go for?

Denita: Well we say, as long as it needs so at least at a minimum, the five years that has been established under the Administration Act, and not a time sooner. It’s going to take a long time, not only for the Administrator to not only get rid of the bad actors but now putting systems in place to ensure that there’s not a repeat of this in the CFMEU. But we can’t just look at the CFMEU in this situation. It was enabled by the CFMEU. It was pursued by the CFMEU, but people allowed it to happen unnecessarily, and they need to look at themselves, including governments. So, a lot of hard work now needs to be done to secure a better industry.

Host: Do you think governments are open to your suggestions?

Denita:  Certainly, we acknowledge that governments are listening to the industry. The Federal Government has established the National Construction Industry Forum. You know, from my perspective, there’s been a lot of talk, but now is time for action. We know what the Administrator has done. We really need additional things, as we’ve reflected in our six-point plan, to be put in place well and truly embedded culturally but before we even think about administration being lifted.

Host: On the front page of the Herald Sun today, there’s a story about dubious characters, actually from the CFMEU, handing out, volunteering and handing out pamphlets for particular ALP candidates at the last election and they talk about one in particular, Johnny ‘Two Guns’ Walker, who was on actually on parole and was wearing an anklet and had just come out of jail for eight years for manslaughter. When you actually see those sorts of stories, what are your concerns?

Denita: Well, our concerns is that we need to ensure that we have people that work in this industry, whether they’re involved with the union or they’re our subcontractors or they’re our head contractors that are abiding by the law. Further that all political parties need to ensure that those representing them are people of good repute. So, this comes down to the need for probity checks. It is an issue that is requiring people to realise that if they hold public office or they are in high levels of leadership, the onus is upon all of us, including myself as a leader of an industry association with the industry, to be above the law, to be leading by example, and that is, unfortunately, a case where it does not make the pub test by any stretch of the imagination.

Media contact: Dylan Hafey, Media Advisor

0497 330 064 |  dylan.hafey@masterbuilders.com.au