The Guardian 13 June, 2007
CFMEU calls on ABCC to detail allegations
CFMEU Construction National Secretary Dave Noonan has challenged Australian Building and Construction Commission Commissioner John Lloyd to name the union official accused of threatening to kill one of his inspectors.
Mr Noonan last week wrote to Mr Lloyd demanding that if allegations that have been published concerned any official of the CFMEU, then the union should be notified of the allegations to allow the CFMEU to deal with the matter.
"If Mr Lloyd is directing this allegation at the CFMEU it should be noted that he has chosen to take it straight to the media rather than raising it with the CFMEU", Mr Noonan said.
Mr Noonan also stated there were growing concerns that the ABCC was becoming a taxpayer-funded dirt unit serving the political interests of the Howard Government. "It appears the core role of the ABCC is to release politically damaging allegations, much of it secretly recorded by ABCC inspectors".
"The ABCC’s political pursuits are taking attention away from the real issues in the construction industry — the one worker who dies on an unsafe building site every week.
"Indeed much of the exercise of ABCC powers in recent times is to prevent workers taking action on unsafe building sites.
"The Australian construction industry is not some political pawn in the Howard Government’s re-election strategy — it deserves more respect than that from the ABCC."
The ABCC is a body that takes legal action against individual workers, suspends their right to silence and harasses families of building workers.
"Publicly funded bodies should not indulge in partisan political activity", he said.