Premier David Crisafulli claims CFMEU interruptions at the major Centenary Bridge Upgrade job site added $22 million to the project.
Speaking a day after announcing a commission of inquiry into alleged harassment and violence at the union, Crisafulli said “direct costs because of the behaviour of the CFMEU”, including workplace support and fencing and security to keep officials and protesting workers away from the site amounted to $22 million.
“I’m not even factoring in the costs of project blowouts because of time and the kind of intimidation … I’m talking about the direct costs on one site because of the behaviour of one union,” Crisafulli told reporters this morning.
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli.Credit: Jamila Filippone
In the process, Crisafulli praised the likes of the Australian Workers’ Union.
“I look at the way that the likes of the Australian Workers’ Union conduct themselves and it’s vastly different to the way the CFMEU does,” he said.
However, the $300 million Centenary Bridge Upgrade project, which included a new three-lane bridge between Jindalee and Kenmore, was among major projects infiltrated by criminal-linked companies as part of a ploy by AWU figures to outmuscle thugs and bikies aligned with the rival CFMEU.
A crowd of men in CFMEU-branded clothing at the Centenary Bridge upgrade last year.
Labour hire firm Host Group, which allied itself closely with the AWU in Queensland, won a major contract with the Centenary Bridge’s key contractor BMD Group.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that a security subcontractor used by Host engaged several high-ranking Comancheros, including the feared bikie group’s national president, Bemir Saracevic, to intimidate CFMEU figures in Brisbane last year.
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Crisafulli was not asked about the AWU’s role in the cost blowout this morning.
“[The commission of inquiry] is the strongest tool in our arsenal to getting productivity back to worksites and allowing people to be safe,” he said.
“In the next four years, the amount of work that is going to occur in Queensland is the largest infrastructure pipeline in our state’s history, and we need that.
“The only way that we’re going to deliver that infrastructure is if we’ve got work sites that are productive and safe, and people are well paid, and the bullying, intimidation, and thuggery comes to an end.”
AWU’s Victorian secretary, Ronnie Hayden, has previously stressed he was unaware his union had backed any firms such as Host and demanded government intervention to clean up the sector.
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