Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 8:24:34 to 8:28:38
Discussion on the Fair Work Ombudsman's communication with the Minister regarding findings from the review of construction sector agreements.
Topics: Workplace relations, Integrity
Speakers: Michael Campbell, Senator Maria Kovacic, Unknown Speaker, Senator Jane Hume, Senator Marielle Smith
Uh Senator, we did write to the Minister in October 24, I think it was setting out some of our findings against those key subject the like the key subject matters that he raised in his correspondence to us.
Okay.
Can I just ask is that letter public or is that was that private correction?
Can I say actually don't know, Senator? Um I just can't go seems like a lifetime ago already, but um I'm happy to take on notice if that was.
If you could take on notice, we would love to be able to see that letter and have that letter tabled if it was not private correspondence.
Yeah, I'll I'll just need to check.
And in relation to the findings of your review, will that be made public or has that been made public as yet?
I don't know. Again, I don't think we made a public statement, but we have made public statements about different aspects of it. The the agreement part was obviously um interesting, but I suppose it was it didn't go directly to our jurisdiction. For us, we were looking for the conduct that I suppose probably flowed from it or that was around it. Um we were looking for coercive practices by CFMU officials and others with respect to employers and collective agreements in the workplace relations regime under the Fair Work Act. So the construction of the agreements itself, we only had a sort of a limited role in.
Okay. Last October, the Ombudsman told this committee that it had received referrals from the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority. Did those referrals form part of that review?
Uh possibly, I think because we had to rely on a number of different organisations to identify all the employees that we wanted to write to, so obviously the Commission was a big help for us to know who um which employers had agreements with the particular well, the building construction division of the CFM EU in Victoria to allow us to zero in and then write to. So we did draw on a number of people. Whether it was Vita or not, I I don't know. But what I would say is that Vita's an organisation that we do receive information from, among many others about issues occurring on government funded sites and and other sites as well.
Um again you can provide this on notice. Do you have a response rate for those letters that you wrote out? How many of those organizations actually responded to your letter seeking an inconfidence review of their agreement?
It was a very it wasn't a particularly big number, Senator.
It was quite low. And is that consistent with what you expected given the circumstances?
Possibly. Yeah. I I probably wasn't expecting a flood because I I you know I'm writing to people that have CFMU agreements in my history.
Yeah, then I'm going to say I'm not happy with this, because guess what's going to happen?
Well, I can't comment on that, but what I can comment on in my experience said that the individuals that had CFMU agreements in place will indicated they weren't didn't have issues to raise with us.
Yeah. So those that did respond responded and said we're happy that we've got an agreement because it gives us the work and you had a lot that didn't respond at all.
But we have, yeah, they were of that cohort, but we obviously receive information from others in the sector.
And then you had others who said we can't get near it because they don't like us.
And that and that doesn't mean that um and we deal with them in our usual way, in it in accordance with our usual investigative processes.
Do you have concerns around the agreements that have been entered into with the CFMEU? or you can't make that judgment.
I can't make that judgment. I would reflect that the administrators indicated that he has some concerns about CFMU agreements that have been made historically and probably wouldn't in his, you know, now that he's been administrator that he probably wouldn't want to enter into those arrangements into the future.
Um rotating at quarter past.