Interview with Kenny Heatley, Sky News

Event: Interview with Kenny Heatley, Sky News

Date: 20 August 2024, 8.50am AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia
Topics: CFMEU Administration

Kenny Heatley, host Sky News: Well it was a significant day in Parliament yesterday. Labor and the Coalition agreeing to pass CFMEU legislation, and now the union will enter administration. Joining me live is Denita Wawn, Chief Executive of Master Builders Australia. Denita, thanks for your time. How significant is the passing of the CFMEU bill through Parliament for the building industry?

Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia: This is massive, Kenny, and certainly the relief of the industry is significant. This is a first step of, that is decades in the making, four Royal Commissions, goodness knows how many court cases have all said that we need a change. We have a toxic culture and administration to clean up the union is going to be absolutely critical for our sector. So massive, massive day yesterday. We commend the bipartisan approach that was taken by the ALP and the Coalition to ensure the passing of this bill. It was the right thing for the industry, and it was right thing for the community.

Kenny: The Greens were criticised for not supporting the bill. The Greens say the bill is “anti-worker and draconian.” Is it?

Denita: No, it’s not. I think it’s really important to note that the Government, with our support, said that we should not deregister this union. It is not fair for the workers, but it also would not be good for the industry, because they could work outside of the system. And as such, we still now have a union, but hopefully a lawful union that is run by an administrator for a minimum period of three years to ensure that the union is cleaned up, and it acts like every other union does in Australia, in representing their workers on a lawful basis; that is critical. And it’s important that the workers are represented, but in a way that is not toxic and not counterproductive, for the building of our homes, our schools, our hospitals and our roads.

Kenny: The period of administration is a minimum of three years, up to five, but the banning of political donations and political advertising by the CFMEU will not be legislated. Instead, there’ll be an agreement to do so. What do you think about the settings? Do you think they’re right? Do they go far enough?

Denita: The settings are absolutely right when it comes to administration, it is something that we’ve supported from day one. We commend the negotiations that occurred throughout last week and over the weekend to get to the outcome that we saw yesterday, but we’ve got to remember this is a critical first step. It’s not the only step. Our view is that we need additional laws to ensure protection of businesses that put forward evidence over the coming years. That is going to be critical to ensure that we get adequate understanding of what has been happening, but also it then provides the justification for our push for a regulator with stronger teeth, that we’re not just talking about industrial relations laws, as was the purview of the ABCC, but we’re also talking about a regulator that looks at criminal behaviour, anti-competitive behaviour, there needs to be a string of legislative changes, and a regulator that is going to ensure, from a long term perspective, that we don’t repeat this issue that has occurred time and time again over the last few decades.

Kenny: Yeah, because a bill to restore the ABCC, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, was presented to Parliament yesterday by the Coalition. It was shut down by the Albanese Government. In your view, does the ABCC need to be reinstated?

Denita: We’re of the view that a regulator needs to be reinstated, but equally, the ABCC was curtailed by industrial relations laws. So we would like to see the restoration of a specialist regulator, but actually say that it needs to go much further than what the ABCC looked at. We need to focus on the nature of the industry and how it leads to criminal and cartel like behaviour and also industrial relations unrest. So a new regulator should not be confined just to industrial relations, it needs to be far broader. We’ve commended the Coalition in the reintroduction of a number of bills that were previously debated before Parliament in previous terms, but nevertheless, we think that’s a starting point for negotiations with the Coalition and the Government, on this specialist regulator that we’ve now been calling for for many years, but particularly since this story blew up a month ago.

Kenny: Ok, Denita Wawn, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Media contact:
Dee Zegarac
National Director, Media & Public Affairs
0400 493 071
dee.zegarac@masterbuilders.com.au