The commissioner charged with investigating the CFMEU in Queensland is considering whether he should make early recommendations, despite the state government extending the inquiry until late next year.
In May, Deputy Premier and Industrial Relations Minister Jarrod Bleijie extended the Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU and Misconduct in the Construction Industry by almost 18 months to December 3, 2027.
Earlier this month, the government and inquiry brushed off calls, including from the union’s own administration-commissioned investigator, barrister Geoffrey Watson SC, for a Victorian inquiry-style special prosecutor to act on evidence of criminality before any final report.
After hearing evidence from Cross River Rail project superintendent James Maher on Wednesday, Commissioner Stuart Wood said the commission should consider making recommendations before its end-date.
Wood’s comments came after the inquiry had just heard evidence of police inaction at Cross River Rail’s Albert Street Station site, where they would not intervene in a CFMEU blockade on May 24, 2023.
Police body-cam vision tendered at the inquiry showed Maher speaking with police officers about a picket line at the site, which was preventing a critical concrete pour.
“They are going to cause potentially half a million dollars worth of damage to our business. Is that something that you’re all willing to intervene and prevent?” Maher is heard saying to a police officer.
The officer responds: “I’ll have to take it as it comes.”
Police tell Maher in the footage they did not have jurisdiction to intervene in protected industrial action, despite Maher’s protestations that their enterprise agreement was with the rival Australian Workers Union, not the CFMEU, so it was therefore not protected action.
They also suggest other avenues available to Maher, which Wood dismissed out of hand.
“Everything that police officer did, every decision that seemed to be made seemed to be the wrong one legally or administratively,” he said.
“Everyone asking Mr Maher has he gone to the Fair Work Commission – none of the police’s business. Has he gone to the Federal Court? None of his business. Has he dealt with [Workplace Health and Safety Queensland]? None of his business. Is he going to sit down and negotiate with these agitators? None of his business.
“It just strikes me, as there’s some profound problem, at least in relation to the videos that you’ve just shown, in the way the police went about their task in relation to this project, but also others.”
Echoing his earlier exasperation in July, about police inaction at the Centenary Bridge worksite in 2024, Wood said the police should have intervened.
“Shouldn’t the police say to someone like Mr Maher in this situation, ‘You’ve got a whole lot of people outside your site with no legal basis to be there, blockading you in your attempt to build the biggest piece of public infrastructure that the taxpayers are paying for, as the taxpayers are paying for the police – what can we do to help?’” Wood said.
“Instead, we get endless meetings and diversions and excuses and instructions to negotiate, and eventually throwing up the hands, saying, ‘We don’t have the resources to deal with this mob.’
“I just find it extraordinary.”
Wood said the pattern showed it might not be prudent to wait until the end of the inquiry to start making recommendations.
“We’re in the process of producing an interim report in relation to whether or not we should recommend that the Queensland government bring back a procurement code to govern the way in which expenditure of taxpayers’ money – on the upcoming $120 billion or so of government expenditure on construction projects over the next four years – should be deployed,” he said.
“I just wonder whether we really should wait ’til December 2027 to say something.”
The inquiry continues on Thursday, when former New York State Organised Crime Task Force director Ronald Goldstock is due to provide evidence.
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