By quickly moving to get rid of the building watchdog, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made a fragile pact with the CFMEU that the militant union won’t become a political liability.
It’s when the CFMEU introduces its own “GST”, builders say, and takes on employers with a renewed freedom and power.
Master Builders NSW executive director Brian Seidler says that, since the scrapping of the code, some builders were reporting a change in attitude from CFMEU organisers and delegates, who they said were telling employers “this is our time now”. The CFMEU has accrued some $15 million in fines for unlawful industrial behaviour since the Coalition re-established the ABCC in December 2016. Much of it is coercion, unlawful industrial action and abuse or intimidation on building sites.But the Labor government flagged it would scrap the building code and the ABCC ahead of the federal election, so few are questioning whether the government has a mandate. It’s the speed that has surprised some.
Responding this week to Coalition attacks in parliament that the abolition of the watchdog was due to millions of dollars in CFMEU donations, the prime minister stressed that he was fulfilling a fundamental Labor value that “all workers should be subject to the same laws and regulations as others”.is also a leap of faith for the prime minister
By moving quickly to extract the teeth of the CFMEU’s hated watchdog, Albanese could be hoping that the union in turn won’t make life politically difficult for him.
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