Denita Wawn Recipient Speech for the Charles Copeman Medal presented by the HR Nicholls Society

Master Builders Australia

Recipient Speech for the Charles Copeman Medal presented by the HR Nicholls Society

CEO Denita Wawn

20 November 2025, Melbourne

**Check against delivery**

Opening

I thank the HR Nicholls Society for the honour of being awarded the Charles Copeman Medal this evening.

I want to first acknowledge Mrs Alison Copeman, Frank Parry KC, President of the HR Nicholls Society, other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

My passion for industrial relations was forged as a teenager in the 1980s, at a time when industry was highly constrained through restrictive union-backed workplace relations arrangements that were productivity zapping. (Nothing seems to have changed!)

It was a time when industry leaders who inspired me such as Charles Copeman and Ian McLachlan stepped up to challenge the status quo.

Conflicts in the Pilbara, the shearing sheds, the abattoirs and the building and construction industry drew me in and shaped a lasting fascination with the intersection of politics, law, and the economy through an industrial relations prism.

My History

In 1995, at the end of the Keating era, I entered the industrial relations fray at the Australian Hotels Association.

Hotel businesses bogged down in a morass of industrial relations regulation.

The instructions were to try and stop ongoing additional layers of regulation being pursued through industrial award amendments and instead try and unravel the complexities that small business could not fathom.

It was a hard slog and not overly successful.

The well navigated Reith reforms assisted in many ways including the Hospitality Award being the test case for award simplification that provided some short-term relief.

My 10 years running industrial relations at the National Farmers Federation from 2002 were fraught:

• Defending the highly flexible, easy-to-navigate agricultural awards – except for the shearing formula and horticulture piece rates;
• fighting the Coalition over WorkChoices when the fundamentals of non-corporate agricultural business structures were ignored;
• travelling the country to explain to bewildered farmers that the guidance we gave during WorkChoices seminars had to be set aside in favour of the new Fair Work Rules;
• and enduring a multiple-award modernisation process that was anything but modernisation.

And now nearly 10 years with Master Builders since 2016:

• Coming in as the Royal Commission into Trade Unions recommendations were handed down,
• fighting for the Australian Building Construction Commission,
• calling out unlawful union behaviour,
• running internationally recognised campaigns on the ABCC
• and more recently a campaign on the Closing the Loopholes legislation which saw the rights of independent contractors in the industry maintained,
• pushing back on a thought bubble by a Coalition Workplace Relations Minister to give union EBAs an easier pathway in Commission but not to non union EBAs,
• and working with the ALP, with support of the Coalition, to put the CFMEU into Administration because that was the better option for the industry than deregulation given the capacity of the union to continue as an industrial actor in an unregulated environment.

All up, around 25 years of industrial relations experience in industry associations, but I feel as though my overall performance mark is, at best, a C minus in terms of delivering better outcomes for members.

Why?

Because Industrial Relations remains a quagmire that is overly complex, productivity-restricting, and very often ineffective at stopping bad actors while ensnaring those who try to do the right thing.

It might keep all of us IR “tragics” gainfully employed but it doesn’t help the economy.

Role of Industry Associations

So why keep up the fight?

Because being an industrial relations advocate in an industry association is not an abstract policy role. It is a practical duty to the thousands of businesses we represent.

When IR settings are poorly designed or not enforced, the economic ripple effects are immediate with higher costs and inflation, fewer jobs, delayed projects, and weaker investment.

Our advocacy must be grounded in the lived realities of employers: simplifying compliance, protecting viable contracting arrangements, and defending the viability of businesses so they can continue to contribute to growth, training, and community resilience.

We also need to be honest about values.

We must stand for the rule of law, safety on worksites, fair reward for effort, open competition, and protection of all from bad actors – whoever they may be.

These are not partisan slogans, they are the foundations of a prosperous and fair economy.

So what can we do in the here and now?

Master Builders IR priorities

For Master Builders, our immediate focus is about building upon the opportunity that the CFMEU Administration has created.

We need to remove the worst elements of our industry and restore lawful behaviour in our industry, to restore confidence and be able to deliver the homes and infrastructure Australians are rightfully calling for.

This is not the job of the Administrator alone. There is a role for regulators, law enforcement, politicians, other unions, and industry associations to step up, to hold all unlawful behaviour in our industry to account.

We also need to broaden our thinking beyond an industrial relations prism. When industrial relations is used as a weapon to secure monopoly power, competition law and criminal law, and their enforcement, must be part of the response.

Our immediate priority list is as follows:

• An all-encompassing building and construction regulator that is not constrained by the current inter-agency restrictions and has the appropriate powers and resources to do what is needed to enforce the law and support cultural change across the industry.
• Changes to competition law to ensure anti-competitive practices including cartel like behaviour that are a handbrake on productivity be outlawed.
• Seeking Enterprise Agreements that are not anti-competitive and are reflective of a modern day era of work for men AND women.

Change Strategy

So, how we are working to bring about change?

Through using all the pathways that are available to us to effect positive change for our members.

In that regard, our current positive engagement with the ALP Government on IR and the CFMEU Administrator has perplexed many people.

One minute we were, at the beginning of 2024, at loggerheads with the Government on the Closing the Loopholes Bill by campaigning against them in marginal seats, but by the end of 2024 we were working with the Government to get the Administration Bill across the line.

But I note, in both instances, we were successful in securing a favourable outcome.

Now, there is cynicism in some quarters, about the role of the National Construction Industry Forum – a tripartite IR arrangement – a back to the future approach a la the 1980s Accord – but it is my view that we should attempt to find ways through this process for improved outcomes.

We need to accept that a non-combative approach should be given a chance, however foreign the concept is to those in the building and construction industry, provided that it is matched by accountability and tangible outcomes.

It is our responsibility in that process to remain ready to push back if outcomes being sought are contrary to our values and the need to improve the productivity of our industry.

Our involvement in the NCIF does not mean compromising on our principles but rather being pragmatic about the pathway available to us that may deliver lawful, productive outcomes.

In summary, 

We know that productivity declines in our economy are in part due to IR and this is being ignored in productivity discussions – this cannot continue.

But we cannot just take a defensive approach.

We need to advocate sensible solutions.

We need to use all the tools available to us in seeking change.

We need to try and find a solution for an industrial relations system that is simple, that enables businesses to succeed to their full potential, that protects those who are vulnerable, and rewards all for hard work.

Even though I might sound like I am still that naive 1980s teenager, I’d like to think that this goal is achievable, is worth fighting for, and is not simply a mirage.

Thank you.

Media contact: Dee Zegarac, National Director External Affairs and Engagement
0400 493 071 | dee.zegarac@masterbuilders.com.au