More witnesses to give evidence as hearing continues
Former Queensland minister Mark Bailey is accused of directing his department and contractors to negotiate with the CFMEU under a policy that raised red flags with the former federal construction watchdog.
Giving evidence to Queensland’s CFMEU inquiry, the state’s civil construction industry chief accused the government of conducting a sham consultation around the policy and warned it should be read “like a CFMEU document”.
Launched by the state last year reporting with this masthead And 60 Minutes The inquiry into crime, corruption and abuse at the CFMEU and in the construction industry across the country resumed public work yesterday.
The man tasked by government-appointed administrators to investigate the CFMEU was Geoffrey Watson SC. Opening week of public hearings in November – he is also scheduled to be called to the stand again this week.
Construction Contractors Federation Queensland CEO Damian Long told the inquiry yesterday he had heard from public officials and contractors that the CFMEU was involved in ministerial deliberations; He repeated a second-hand claim by senior public officials that there was “a ministerial direction to negotiate” with the union rather than the Australian Workers Union.
He told the inquiry the instruction came from the then transport minister, Mark Bailey, via the ministry’s director general, Neil Scales, and one of his deputies.
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