CFMEU inquiry as it happened: Workplace Health and Safety Queensland inspectors take stand

Just jumping into the inquiry and need a refresher on the ground covered so far? Here’s a recap of the powerful probe’s work to date.

Last week: Senior inquiry staff held an unusual media conference outside a Gold Coast traffic management company they said they would be looking into over its potential links to Melbourne underworld identity Mick Gatto. (The company says it wasn’t given a heads-up about the visit, and insist everything is above board.)

Last month: The inquiry held its first (of 10) three-day public hearing blocks for the year, with evidence from a senior civil construction industry figure and the CFMEU administrators former corruption-busting barrister. There was much focus on the latter’s recent Victorian-focused report, and accusations that a former Labor minister directed his department to negotiate with the union.

Last year: Across two weeks of hearings in November and December, the inquiry heard from government-appointed CFMEU administration figures about the former leadership’s use of violence to expand their “fiefdom” into civil construction. A second hearing block delved deeper into the why, how and who, driven by two union leaders on the receiving end, or in the middle of, the building union’s alleged efforts.

After continuing to work through Workplace Health and Safety Queensland operations manager Deborah Dargan’s statement, we’ve now hit 3.30pm.

With the time set aside for the inquiry today now up, and Smith about to move onto another element of Dargan’s statement, Commissioner Stuart Wood adjourns proceedings until 10am tomorrow.

We’ll be back then to bring you all the detail, too.

Junior counsel assisting the inquiry, Alastair Smith, is taking Dargan through her statement, in which she detailed a shift in how Workplace Health and Safety Queensland’s construction team dealt with CFMEU complaints.

After the Palaszczuk government came to power in 2015, priorities shifted and complaints from the union began being treated as the highest priority for inspectors to respond to, regardless of the risk of the complaint.

After Helen Burgess became the construction compliance and field services director in 2018, this started happening more frequently, Dargan said.

Asked why this was happening, Dargan said her colleague responsible for allocating jobs told her: “It’s what Helen wants.

“At first, it felt like every now and then, and then it felt like all the time,” she said.

And we’re back from lunch, with Workplace Health and Safety Queensland operations manager Deborah Dargan continuing her evidence.

Dargan is working through her background as a principal inspector with the office, which is laid out in a written statement tendered to the inquiry.

After foreshadowing in some more detail what the inquiry will hear this week from three of its proposed witnesses, senior counsel assisting Patrick Wheelahan flags an application from one to be excused – for now.

Wheelahan says David Cappelletti, a Workplace Health and Safety Queensland inspector, was due to give evidence that the culture changed in the office after the election of the Palaszczuk government and appointment of Helen Burgess in 2018.

“Workplace Health Safety Queensland went from a relaxed and effective workplace to one with a culture of bullying, intimidation and harassment of inspectors by senior managers,” Wheelahan says.

However, Wheelahan says the inquiry received a letter from Cappelletti’s GP which says he is “suffering significant anxiety and distress” and was advised not to attend.

Wheelahan says the inquiry will call the GP to give evidence this week so that Commissioner Stuart Wood can decide on the summons issued to Cappelletti to give evidence.

Wheelahan has laid out what he says are the methods of the CFMEU to achieve its alleged regulatory capture.

This was through improper external pressure such as aggressive and intimidatory behaviour towards Workplace Health and Safety Queensland representatives.

Improper pressure was placed on frontline staff through the union’s “misuse of its position on the Work Health and Safety Board” and “inappropriate relationships with public servants”.

There were also calls for resignation of senior staff when demands were not met, and an improper role of CFMEU in selection panels for senior public servants.