The Maritime Union of Australia will join other trade unions in funding a High Court challenge against the Federal Government's unjustified, chaotic and reckless decision to place the CFMEU's Construction Division into administration.
We have made it clear that corruption and criminality have absolutely no place in unions, the construction sector, or in Australian society more broadly. Any allegations relating to criminality and corruption are serious. Where this behaviour is alleged, it should be investigated by the relevant authorities.
Today at a meeting of the MUA's National Executive, the leadership of our Division reconfirmed our opposition both the method of the government's intervention and its implementation to date, noting that the legislation rushed through both houses of Parliament last month had effectively robbed construction workers of an effective union while also setting aside key democratic principles essential to all Australian citizens, organisations, community groups, religious organisations and charities that the presumption of innocence, natural justice and due process should always prevail under law.
The MUA has already highlighted the disastrous impact of administration on the progress of EBAs that were on foot and the green light it has sent to bad and abusive employers who treat construction workers as an expendable resource in unsafe workplaces.
We join other unions and concerned groups and citizens in our opposition to the legislation. Our support for this legal campaign is not just to restore the rights and protections of Construction Division members but to hold the line against future attacks using similar legislation on other Australian workers.
Our Division remains deeply concerned by the legislative precedent established by the Federal Government to remove trade union rights on the basis of untested media allegations. We are also concerned by the near certainty that similar future legislation will be used by governments of either stripe against other militant blue-collar unions, including the MUA.
When a criminal conspiracy between Patrick Stevedores and the then Howard Government was revealed in the release of Cabinet papers, no criminal investigation or proceedings were ever launched. This double standard goes to the heart of the MUA's determination to join and fund a High Court challenge against these laws. We have been on the receiving end of these calculated political and media smears in the past and will support our fellow members in the Construction Division as they seek to clear their names and fight for the principles of natural justice, presumption of innocence, the rules of evidence and procedural fairness.
We are supporting our federated Union's members in the construction industry and backing them in as they fight for the right of their Division to exist. The have been and remain central to the protection of trade union and labour rights both in the construction industry, the maritime sector and more broadly for all Australian and international working women and men that benefit from the strength of the CFMEU.
