Interview with Stephen Cenatiempo, 2CC Canberra Radio

Event: Interview with Stephen Cenatiempo, 2CC Canberra Radio
Date: 16 July 2024, 8:40am AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia
Topics: CFMEU investigation
E&OE

Stephen Cenatiempo, 2CC Canberra Radio: It’s 21 minutes to nine. Now, look, we’ve talked enough about the CFMEU and the problems going on within the union. But the question that must be asked is, what do we do to sort this out? Denita Wawn is the CEO of Master Builders Australia, and they have some recommendations. Denita, good morning.

Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia: Good morning, as always.

Stephen: Well did you fall off your chair when you found out the CFMEU was dodgy?

Denita: Ah, no.

Stephen: I don’t think anybody, apart from the government, I don’t think anybody else did either. But look, you’ve actually put together a series of recommendations on how to tidy the industry up. What do we need to do?

Denita: Well, there’s a number of things, we say that is a starting point, not an endpoint. But they’re the urgent ones. First and foremost, we need a joint police strike force that is properly resourced to really look at all the allegations of criminal activity. Further, we believe that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission needs to be adequately resourced to look at anti-competitive behaviour, particularly cartel behaviour that was alleged in the report. We need the Fair Work Ombudsman, again, to be more effectively resourced to look at a range of things, including whether or not EBAs have been genuinely agreed, there is allegations that they have been certainly done under duress. And finally, we’re asking the federal government to put a lot more governance around recidivist officials and unions. We’ve seen the de-reg of the BLF. There’s calls for the CFMEU to be a registered, but our concern is that if you de-register without putting in adequate governance of all unions and employer organisations, that means that there are consequences of a disregard for law by officials, then that’s a good start. So that, that’s our wish list that we’re putting to the federal government. And as I said, that’s just the urgent action list as opposed to long term.

Stephen: Do you think that the allegations that have now been advised that 60 Minutes report in the Nine Newspapers are enough to, I guess, press gang the government into accepting some of these recommendations? Because I mean, here, even here in the ACT, we’re now hearing that the CFMEU are still pushing ahead, trying to get more control over government procurement and government employment appointments across even, even outside their own scope. So, they certainly, I mean, it’s a militant union, we know that. But the CFMEU hasn’t backed down from any of its positions. I mean, the press release, you would have seen the press release they put out yesterday, almost trying to defend the the union against these allegations.

Denita: Yeah, it’s quite incredulous, really, isn’t it? To think that this is a union that has proudly said that they will ignore laws that they believe are unjust. Well, that is not the society that we have in Australia. If you don’t like laws, you can get them changed, but they disregard our democratic right to change the process of making law and the adherence to it. So it’s quite incredible that all of a sudden everyone’s jumping up and down. We’ve been saying now for decades, we’ve had four royal commissions, the last one was 2015 with a series of recommendations, some of them were implemented by the then coalition government. They’ve been dismantled by this government. We need a bipartisan approach, for once and for all, to put appropriate governance measures in place. And more importantly, for regulators and police to be resourced adequately to stamp out this type of disregard for law.

Stephen: You haven’t mentioned the reinstitution of the ah, ABCC, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, do you think that needs to be put back in place?

Denita: We certainly think there needs to be a strong building regulator. We acknowledge the federal government has ruled out that, but as such, we’ve said that there are alternative ways to still get similar outcomes to hold unions and union officials to account if they’ve got recidivist tendencies. And certainly, from our perspective, that’s the very least, we think that there should be additional powers of the Fair Work Ombudsman and additional provisions of the registered organisation laws. So that’s a start, but certainly we know that we need more. Bob Hawke deregistered the BLF in 1985, because of exactly the same type of behavior. And the governments need to stand up to these coercion, slavery and bullying by many within the CFMEU.

Stephen: Six million dollars worth of donations as a is a big enticement, though. Look, I guess the real crux of this, though, is the cost. Can you, have you’ve been able to quantify, what all the shenanigans within the CFMEU are adding to the cost of construction in Australia?

Denita: Well, we’ve always said, and we’ve got modelling to back it up, but it’s around about a 30 per cent additional cost to public infrastructure. Now that’s been ridiculed in the past, but we’ve been consistently stood by that figure that has been independently, as, you know, modeled for us. So we, certainly the investigation, I think, is suddenly people have realised this is not just about Master Builders, jumping up and down. This is real. And I commend the investigation that has been undertaken a lot of time and effort in uncovering what we know has been there for so long. But people have been too afraid, for retribution, to actually be able to put their head up amongst the pulpit and say, yep, we’ve got problems as an industry because I’ve been scared to do so.

Stephen: Good on you, Denita, great to talk to you this morning.

Denita: Thank you.

Stephen: Denita Wawn, CEO of Master Builders Australia.

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