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<\/p>\nQueensland’s CFMEU inquiry commissioner has called for urgent changes in the state’s construction industry after hearing “highly disturbing” allegations of union misconduct.<\/p>\n
In an interim report made public on Wednesday afternoon, Commissioner Stuart Wood KC recommends the state government introduce a new building code and establish a dedicated regulator to enforce compliance.<\/p>\n
Mr Wood was not due to hand down his findings until December next year but said there was an “urgent and pressing” need to implement change following more than 50 days of hearings and evidence from over 80 witnesses.<\/p>\n
“The evidence \u2026 demonstrates that a number of issues \u2026 warrant immediate attention,” Mr Wood wrote.<\/p>\n
“In my view, there is a compelling public interest in the government receiving and considering \u2026 preliminary findings and recommendations.”<\/p>\n
Commissioner Wood said the inquiry had uncovered “disturbing” evidence of CFMEU misconduct and cost blowouts related to the former Labor government’s controversial Best Practice Industry Conditions (BPIC) policy, which set pay and conditions on major taxpayer-funded projects.<\/p>\n
The commissioner described BPIC, which has been scrapped by the Crisafulli government, as “damaging”.<\/p>\n
He found the policy had driven up construction costs by at least 20 per cent on three projects examined by the inquiry \u2014 Brisbane’s Cross River Rail and the Centenary Bridge upgrade as well as the Gold Coast Light Rail.<\/p>\n
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The BPIC drove up the cost of certain projects, the commissioner found. (ABC News: Curtis Rodda)<\/p>\n
“However, I consider the estimate of 20 per cent to be a conservative view,” Mr Wood wrote.<\/p>\n
“In coming to this view, I am dealing only with the increase in costs caused by the implementation of BPIC, leaving aside for the moment any quantification as to delays caused by BPIC.”<\/p>\n
“Ultimately, it is the taxpayer that wears the cost here,” he said.<\/p>\n
The commissioner said the policy also fuelled a bitter turf war between the CFMEU and Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) over control of Queensland’s civil construction sector.<\/p>\n
Proposed construction code<\/p>\n
At the centre of Mr Wood’s recommendations is a new construction industry code designed to improve workplace safety, lift productivity and efficiency and strengthen legal compliance.<\/p>\n
Mr Wood said the standards should be “uncontroversial”, particularly in the building and construction industry in which “large sums of taxpayers’ money are at play.”<\/p>\n
The commissioner also called for a well-resourced regulator to educate the industry about the code and enforce compliance.<\/p>\n
The reforms would apply to Queensland’s $119 billion infrastructure pipeline over the next four years, with Mr Wood warning of the need to reduce wasteful government spending at taxpayers’ expense.<\/p>\n
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Commissioner Wood said BPIC had fuelled a turf war over control of Queensland’s civil construction sector. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)<\/p>\n
The code would use the threat of exclusion from future government-funded construction work to encourage good behaviour among contractors and subcontractors.<\/p>\n
“This is not a unique or novel concept,” Mr Wood said, pointing to similar construction codes and regulators operating at state and federal levels for at least 30 years.<\/p>\n
He said it was modelled on guidelines introduced in Queensland in 2013, which were abolished by the incoming Palaszczuk government two years later without industry consultation and “seemingly in the dead of night”.<\/p>\n
The Crisafulli government is expected to respond to the interim report on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The inquiry’s final report was originally due in July, but the deadline was extended to December 2027 to allow further investigation into the wide-ranging allegations before the commission.<\/p>\n
Mr Wood said the probe had received nearly eight million documents and had heard evidence of union misconduct, cost blowouts and alleged regulatory capture, alongside expert testimony identifying traits of organised crime and corruption in the CFMEU’s conduct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland’s CFMEU inquiry commissioner has called for urgent changes in the state’s construction industry after hearing “highly disturbing”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":960496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,79005,19674,13480,44,94,701,8207],"class_list":["post-960495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cfmeu","tag-inquiry","tag-interim","tag-news","tag-qld","tag-queensland","tag-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/960496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}