Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 8:17:06 to 8:24:32
The Fair Work Ombudsman provides an update on its review of CFMEU agreements related to Victorian 'Big Build' infrastructure projects.
Topics: Workplace relations, Infrastructure
Speakers: Michael Campbell, Senator Maria Kovacic, Anna Booth
Thank you, Chair. Um Thank you for your time today. Um in July 2024, then workplace relations minister Burke asked um the Fairwork Ombudsman to undertake a targeted review of all CFMU agreements made by the Victorian branch that apply to the big build projects. Can you confirm if that is correct?
I'll ask Mr. Campbell. Um I have a recollection around that time of such a request, but I prefer to give you accurate information.
Um thank you, Senator Michael Campbell Group Manager operations here at the Bellow Hong Committee. Um sorry, Senator, you're testing my memory a little bit, but of course I do very much recall um Minister Burke's correspondence to the agency asking us that we make a number of inquiries into allegations of potential breaches of the Fair Work Act as it related to uh big build projects, particularly in Victoria, but also as it spread into or else as allegations spread into um other states. So with respect to collective agreements, um our role is to ensure that they're uh enforced and ensure that they are made in a way which is consistent with the act, as in um there's no coercion um or undue well, sorry, unlawful influence on a person to enter into or not enter into the collective agreement. So the scope of it was limited to our jurisdiction if that makes sense. Others like the Fairworth Commission, etc. looked into sort of their aspect of the process.
How many agreements were examined? Are you able to tell me?
Um we wrote to, and I'm just going to go off my memory for now, Senator, because I don't think. If you couldn't provide the balance of information on notice, yeah, I should be able to help, but if I can't give you a specific, we wrote to every we wrote to every employer that we could identify that had a CFMU agreement and worked on a Victorian big build or government site and asked them to provide information to us about their collective agreement and any concerns they have about how it was constructed or how and why they did it into entered into it as a way of us trying to generate um leads, if you like. Um we also looked into that's part of the answer. And then off the back of that, we received intelligence and leads to then conduct further inquiries into um agreement construction issues, if that makes sense.
Could you provide on notice the number of agreements that were examined?
I can provide on notice. Yes, I'll be able to provide some other notice on it.
Thank you. Did the review find any agreements that were not genuine genuinely agreed or any evidence of coercion, adverse action or misrepresentation in the manner in which they were made?
What we found was that most of the people that had CFMU agreements were content that they did. Because that gave them access to work on government sites, as it was. That was the feedback that we got. Oh, I'm I won't judge on the how, but that's the feedback that we got. We did we did identify some matters where we had some concerns about how agreements were potentially struck, as in the voting process that sat behind the collective agreements. Now that sort of started to shift outside of our jurisdiction a little. So we had to be careful about how far we took that as compared to referring it to other organisations to examine. But that was the smaller proportion of it. Most of the feedback that we got was that having an agreement was a of benefit to their business. We got more feedback about from those that were concerned that they didn't have access to an agreement to gain access to sites.
Did they suggest to you why they couldn't um get into it get an agreement?
Oh there were some allegations that suspect so.
Yeah. Could you um identify for us the type of allegations that they identified to you without obviously disclosing any specifics?
I'll probably do a better job of it on notice, Senator. But I can so if you're not happy with the answer I give you, then I'm happy to look at providers.
Let's let's give it a fix. Let's give it a let's give it a clear.
We we certainly found that um we found that um where there'd been uh historic disagreement um with the CFMU was uh it was a basis on which the umployers said they made a may not have been had to have access to an agreement or a particular organiser um or representative of the CFMU equally if they'd had a relationship with the AWU historically, that was um a potential cause in their mind about why they may not have been able to have access to a barrier potentially. Um but as I said, this is just this is just information we received and wasn't necessarily um we we didn't confirm or didn't you know we didn't confirm it uh but we certainly take it as you know intelligence that we use to help shape our investigation.
And look the reason I asked these questions is you're familiar with um you know the reports from Jeffrey Watson and and the um evidence that's come out of the Queensland Commission of Inquiry, and I asked Mr. Watson questions specifically relating to this in the productivity um committee inquiry. Um from what I've seen, it does appear that there are a number of EBAs that are illegally entered into and that it is effectively the cost of doing business or being able to do business on these large projects, which is a real problem for the taxpayer because they are either state funded or state and commonwealth funded projects. So my question to you is um whether the review of any of these agreements or any of the allegations or concerns that were aired with you, has that led to any formal investigations or proceedings.
My short answer is uh no, Senator, because it's outside of our jurisdiction. So that the coercive Have you referred it to anyone? Oh, we've made a number of referrals to different organisations, Senator. But I suppose our coercion is the coercion that you where coercion for someone to enter into a certain uh sorry, collective agreement with a certain organisation, and you know, that coercive behaviour needs to be more than simply pressure, it needs to effectively deny the free will of the individual to make another decision. And so that's the bar we work to, so coercion obviously has a range of applications in terms of as a word, but we have a legal bar that we work to. Um so that's something we're we're willing to investigate, but if if a person makes a decision from a commercial perspective to enter into a collective agreement, then that's not coercion for for the purpose of the Fair Work Act.
Well it's interesting because you could go, okay, I don't really want to do this, but if I don't do this, then I don't get the work. And then my business doesn't survive. So it's kind of being stood over, right?
I couldn't comment on that, Senator. I can I'm happy to share my experience to a point with this issue.
Fair enough. Have you briefed the Minister on the review's findings? And if so, when did that occur?