The inquiry was told Queensland CFMU official Michael Rauber had threatened to “go nuclear” over the bill, which would have blocked workers’ access to union worksites without permission.
Peak body the Queensland Council of Unions has claimed the CFMEU has pushed for the amendment bill to be delayed indefinitely as part of a deal in 2024.
QCU general secretary Jacqueline King told an inquiry into corruption in the Queensland construction industry that the deal was first suggested by former CFMU official Jed Ingham.
Queensland Council of Unions leader Jacqueline King at Tuesday’s hearing. Credit: News Corporation Australia
King said Ingham suggested that if the bill could be delayed, he would replace strongman Michael Rauber as Queensland branch boss.
Ingham suggested that the CFMEU would then return as an affiliate of the QCU and rejoin the Labor Left faction.
King said Ingham told him his replacement was Roar “otherwise going nuclear”.
“He used the word nuclear,” he told the inquiry.
The CFMEU had previously decommissioned the QCU in 2017 after a split over a workplace health and safety review of industrial manslaughter laws.
Asked by counsel assisting the inquiry Mark Costello, KC, what “nuclear” meant, King said that Ingham had told his lieutenant that “the printing presses were ready to campaign against the government”.
The amendment bill – passed a few weeks later – was the result of a workplace health and safety review which blocked the CFMEU’s ability to use parts of the law to access worksites without permits.
After the bill was passed, the CFMEU increased industrial action at worksites around Brisbane from May 2024, including the major Centenary Bridge and Cross River Rail projects.
AAP
