‘It’s a disaster’: old guard still haunting CFMEU
Will Nicholas |
The man in charge of reforming the scandal-plagued CFMEU says he no longer walks down dark alleys and is more vigilant because of threats from the union’s former leaders.
In an address to Canberra’s National Press Club on Tuesday, administrator Michael Crosby said “criminals, bikies and thugs” are still tormenting the CFMEU despite officially playing no further part in it.
“These people from the past just need to shut up,” Mr Crosby told Canberra’ National Press Club on Tuesday.
“It’s a disaster for me personally, but it’s a disaster for the union.”
The administrator said he had been threatened by former Victorian-Tasmanian CFMEU secretary John Setka, who resigned from that role in 2024 amid union-wide allegations of corruption, criminal infiltration and violence.
“John Setka has made threats against me, but I think that was physical harm rather than death,” Mr Crosby said.
“When I leave work, particularly in Melbourne, I am vigilant. I don’t walk down dark alleys anymore, I drive much more than I used to.”
AAP has contacted Mr Setka for comment.
Mr Crosby’s predecessor Mark Irving KC, who took the CFMEU’s helm when Canberra placed it in administration in 2024, reported receiving death threats on the job. He resigned in April.
Of the 320 union employees when Mr Irving took over, 151 have been sacked.
But even with three of the five years allotted for the organisation to clean up its act remaining, the continuing input of former union bosses threatens real damage.
“There’s a bunch of people both in NSW and Victoria stirring up trouble – all it’s doing is making it more likely that this administration is not going to be finished in five years,” Mr Crosby said.
“We get out of administration when I can recommend to the government with a straight face … that the culture of this union has fundamentally changed.
“You (former leaders) are fighting yesterday’s wars.”
In his address, Mr Crosby pledged to establish a permanent risk, audit and compliance unit within the CFMEU that could not be meddled with by union branch officials.
He also suggested establishing new, overarching agreements on multi-faceted builds like the Brisbane Olympics, in exchange for which unions would vow no industrial action for the length of the projects.
The speech coincided with blockbuster inquiries in Victoria and Queensland picking apart the years of alleged CFMEU misconduct.
The union’s wrongdoing was in February estimated to have cost the Victorian taxpayer up to $15 billion – a figure now part of that state’s royal commission.
AAP