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Go to latestWatch live: Queensland’s inquiry into the CFMEU
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CFMEU inquiry: Civil construction boss grilled as Queensland hearings begin after two-month break
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Union disruption ‘nowhere near as bad’ since administration
By William Davis
There were no bombshells or Netflix-worthy cliffhangers to keep Jarrod Bleijie agog overnight as hearings wrapped up for the day.
Several major revelations emerged, though, including claims a minister directed contractors to negotiate with the CFMEU rather than its rivals.
Damian Long was briefly cross-examined at the end of the day by Amelia Hughes, who represented the CFMEU administrator.
He said he believed the union had become much easier to work with since the administrator’s appointment.
Wage impact was ‘beyond anything a contractor could anticipate’
By Matt Dennien
Long has told the inquiry he was aware of compensation paid to contractors who were forced to increase wages on non-BPIC projects to retain workers.
He said this was paid by the Department of Transport and Main Roads, which, while it understood the problem, “had to implement BPICs regardless”.
While contractors do anticipate and manage changes in labour costs, the increases driven by BPICs – drawing workers across from other projects – went beyond that.
“What we’re talking about was way above anything a contractor could anticipate,” Long said.
Bailey told BPIC contributing to housing crisis: Long
By William Davis
Minister Mark Bailey had been told BPIC was affecting the housing market and contributing to a lack of affordability, Damian Long has told the inquiry.
The comments came after the CEO repeatedly said senior government ministers were ignoring industry concerns about impacts of the policy.
“I remember speaking to Minister Bailey at one stage [and saying]: ‘Do you realise that the impacts of the best practice industry conditions has now gone through into the housing market? It’s not quarantined to projects over 100 million.’
“He asked me why, and I explained to him that ‘we’re all competing for the same workforce’ … I think that was lost on him.
“These are the unintended consequences of bad policy.”
The inquiry has strayed from direct discussion of the CFMEU since returning from the lunch break, but a central tenet of Long’s evidence has been that the union was a key player in shaping the BPIC policy.
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No engagement with industry on BPIC fears, inquiry hears
By William Davis
Long says the former Labor government didn’t meaningfully respond to industry concerns raised about a key policy almost six years ago.
A July 2020 letter from multiple industry groups to the premier flagged fears BPIC could “affect business and negatively impact on workers”.
The premier’s office responded a month later, saying it had “noted” the concerns.
“Apart from ‘noting’, there was no response verbally or otherwise that looked like they were going to engage with our concerns,” Long told the inquiry.
“I found it quite insulting that [to] a group of industry heads that represented such a large part of the economy, there was no courtesy to even pull together even a small working group with the government to run through our concerns.”
Lunch is over, Long back up
By William Davis
And we’re back on for the final session of the day.
Damian Long is taking questions again, more than three hours after he first took the stand.
The chief executive is now talking about prequalification conditions, which he earlier suggested effectively meant that “if contractors wanted the government work, they had to comply with BPIC”.
The public gallery in the Brisbane courtroom has thinned out a fair bit since this morning, but there’s still an hour-and-a-half of testimony to go.
Geoffrey Watson SC is also due to front the commission of inquiry this week, but it’s unclear if he will make an appearance today.
The words ‘not mandatory’ started creeping in: Long
By Matt Dennien
Long says his organisation raised concerns with the government about BPICs “strong contravention” of federal workplace laws around coercion and adverse action.
This particularly related to the requirements to “force it down the supply chain” and effectively force contractors to comply with its terms to get government work.
Long says, through a solicitor, his organisation had sought the opinion of the then Australian Building and Construction Commission, which was “there was potential non-compliance”.
After raising that concern, Long says the Department of Housing and Public Works advised it had sought Crown Law advice which said “it was legal”, but refused to release this to him.
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CFMEU behind push to overturn industrial relations status quo: Long
By Matt Dennien
Wood is now taking Long to his evidence that BPICs amounted to a “pattern enterprise agreement”, or an industry-wide approach to workplace agreement making.
Wood makes the point that enterprise-level agreement making had been a bipartisan mainstay of Australian industrial relations for decades as part of efforts to avoid the wage explosions of last century.
Why was this being moved away from, Wood asks Long.
Long says: “The only reason was that it was being driven by the CFMEU. The CFMEU wanted it.”
“We could see within those agreements that the funds, the superannuation funds, redundancy funds, were all CFMEU-aligned. I think it was an opportunity to get the CFMEU onto civil construction sites.”
Consultation with industry over creating BPIC policy was a ‘sham’
By William Davis
The government consultation process was a “sham” during the formulation of best practice industry conditions (BPIC) policy, the inquiry has heard.
Witness Damian Long says industry leaders were kept in the dark early in the process, and unable to give feedback about the proposal.
“I think it was a sham,” he tells the court.
“The collaborative process and consultation process was nothing more than tabling documents to show where the government was going.
“There was no acceptance of any feedback from industry.”
Long’s testimony has focused heavily on the government policy, of which he says industry figures were concerned about potential improper influence by the CFMEU, and that it could drive up prices.
Contractors submitting tenders were told to involve CFMEU, Long says
By Matt Dennien
Pressed by Commissioner Stuart Wood on comments about CFMEU officials being involved in departmental negotiations, Long says he heard this from public servants as well as contractors.
Wood asks why he considered this inappropriate, to which Long answers that a contractor submitting a tender would expect it to be a confidential commercial negotiation without a third party involved.
“Members of the CFMEU were a party to those negotiations, specifically around ensuring that contractors had those agreements with the CFMEU,” Long says.
While contractors were seeking to engage with the Australian Workers’ Union as the major civil construction worker group, they were being told they needed to make a “genuine effort to engage with the CFMEU”.
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Union believed Queensland government ‘had done a deal with them’
By William Davis
The CFMEU believed the Queensland government “had done a deal with them” as a key government policy drove up the cost of construction and caused industrial unrest.
These were among the allegations listed in a Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads document from April 2023, made public for the first time by witness Damian Long on Tuesday.
Long, the Civil Contractors Federation Queensland chief executive, has tendered the notes, which he says were shared with him after the department began speaking to contractors to do its own research into the impacts of BPIC.
“[There were reports of] CFMEU officials stating … ‘it doesn’t matter what the cost of the project is, you’re going to get paid for it anyway. We’ve done a deal with the government’,” Long tells the inquiry.
“‘You will have an agreement with us, and that’s just the way it’s going to work.’”
The document – titled Transport BPIC lessons learned meeting – lists several other allegations raised by industry insiders, including that union officials behaved so aggressively in meetings it put contractors’ mental health at risk and that BPIC read like a CFMEU document.
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