Statement from Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn on the CFMEU, & BLF de-registration 40th anniversary

16 April 2026

This week marks forty years since governments took the extraordinary step of de-registering the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) after ongoing malpractice on building sites.

This intervention failed to clean up the industry because former BLF officials simply re-emerged to lead the CFMEU. We’re seeing this repeat today with former CFMEU officials moving to unions like the ETU, contrary to the intent of the Fair Work Act. We have consistently said that the Administration of the CFMEU was the first step, not the only step to resolving the problems that have plagued the industry.

So, what do we need governments to do this time, before moving the CFMEU out of administration, to ensure history doesn’t repeat?

Based on the findings of past royal commissions, investigations and court judgements, Master Builders Australia is calling on the Federal Government to adopt our six-point plan to end this once and for all.

1. The CFMEU Administration must continue through to the full 5 years – To get anywhere close to resetting culture, the current Administration must continue for the full 5 years, which is 2029, to change leadership, expectations and behaviours across the industry, not just the legal structure.
2. Witnesses must be protected – We need to change the culture to ensure people’s safety is paramount when they need to call out this type of behaviour.
3. Productivity destroying clauses must be banned – These must be rebalanced to ensure that appropriate workplace conditions can support improvements to productivity onsite.
4. Competition law must be strengthened – Where coordinated behaviour between unions and contractors restricts who can work on a site and at what price, the issue is not simply industrial relations, it is competition law. Competition law exists to break cartels in every other sector. Our industry should be no exception.
5. Bad actors must be expelled from both organisations and the system – Deregistering or administration without removing the individuals responsible for misconduct does not solve the problem. That is why a robust fit-and-proper-person test is essential, as applied in finance, corporate governance and other regulated sectors.
6. Effective enforcement – The construction industry operates nationally, but enforcement remains fragmented across multiple regulators and jurisdictions – industrial, police, workplace safety and competition – leading to slow and inconsistent enforcement. If governments are serious about stamping out corruption and criminality on building sites, enforcement must be centralised, well-resourced and empowered to act across jurisdictions.

Forty years after the BLF deregistration, the lessons are clear. History repeats itself when we ignore its lessons. These reforms need time. Time to be developed, to pass the parliament, and to be implemented. The time to start is now.

Media contact: Dylan Hafey, Media Advisor

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