Fair Work Ombudsman investigating conduct of CFMEU

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Victorian and Federal Labor parties say action is underway to crack down on the CFMEU over allegations of serious misconduct. Several investigations are being conducted into the union's construction division.

Transcript

00:00The Premier Jacinda Ardern has again fronted media for the second day.

00:05She was responding to allegations aired this morning in the Nine Papers that she'd been

00:09warned about union misbehaviour, possible criminal behaviour by the CFMEU on big build

00:17government worksites.

00:19She alluded that she ignored those several years ago.

00:22Today she released some correspondence she sent to the Victorian Police Commissioner

00:27Shane Patton last year that showed that she had referred these concerns that were raised

00:32in a meeting with her bureaucrats to him.

00:35But she did throughout this press conference today effectively sheet home blame for some

00:39of the concerns to the Federal Government.

00:41She said industrial relations and workplace laws are the domain of the Federal Government

00:46in Canberra.

00:47She said that her government was making some big changes.

00:50They've already referred this to the Victorian Police, they've referred it to IBAC, the State's

00:54Anti-Corruption Commission.

00:55They're also launching an inquiry which is going to look at how the system works in Victoria

01:00in terms of what industrial oversight they have, where people who make complaints about

01:04issues on building sites can take those complaints and where they can be heard and what action

01:08can be taken.

01:09But that's all pushed off to an inquiry.

01:11The Government is still working on the terms of reference.

01:13She did concede, however, that it wasn't good enough that this complaint that was reported

01:18in The Age this morning that was about an Indigenous subcontracting firm who were bullied

01:24off a site.

01:25It took a long time for her office to respond to them.

01:28She was the Minister in charge of all these major infrastructure projects where these

01:31allegations are said to have taken place in terms of the influence of the CFMEU and the

01:37infiltration of criminal gangs.

01:38These were on major Victorian Government projects that received Victorian taxpayers' money and

01:43some of them also received Federal funding.

01:45So there's a lot of pressure on the Victorian Government to explain why it took so long,

01:48why it took the media to uncover this and this story still has a long way to play out.

01:54For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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