The Federal Court has criticised the ABCC's "misrepresentation" of evidence in pleadings and a media release, concluding the watchdog bore some responsibility for a subsequent report in a national newspaper that wrongly stated that a CFMMEU organiser made a "throat-slitting" gesture to a truck driver.
A judge has walked the fine line between factoring in the CFMMEU's history of legal transgressions and imposing a sanction proportionate to the breach by adding $10,000 to penalties levied on the union after an official blew cigarette smoke in an ER coordinator's face.
The FWC has issued a new permit to a CFMMEU organiser who asserted that a "no ticket, no start" policy applied on a Queensland construction site, while it has rejected ABCC Commissioner Steve McBurney's bid to "impugn" training provided by former tribunal member Jeff Lawrence.
A FWC full bench has upheld as "legally rational and reasonably available" a finding that CFMMEU construction and general division WA branch organiser Walter "Vinnie" Molina is not a fit and proper person to hold an entry permit.
The CFMMEU's engagement of a former FWC presidential member to coach its officials has paid dividends after the Federal Court reduced an organiser's fines after considering his evidence the training had "helped me with the emotional side of the job".
The FWC has chosen not to withdraw an entry permit from a CFMMEU organiser fined $4500 for belittling and bullying conduct but warned the "well from which he drank" by expressing contrition and offering assurances "will likely have run dry" if he returns.
The Federal Court has described the CFMMEU's construction and general division and four of its officials as having "taken the odds" when assuming there was no statutory requirement for them to show entry permits when accessing a major project site.
The Federal Court has rejected the ABCC's "cynical" view of CFMMEU-commissioned entry rights training for an inexperienced organiser who pushed over a Fulton Hogan manager when pressing to access parts of a Monash Freeway project site in 2017.
The CFMMEU has failed in an interlocutory court bid to enter tunnelling sites at Brisbane's $5 billion Cross River Rail Project, in the midst of a demarcation dispute with the AWU.
