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ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell argued nine months ago that the establishment of a local independent commission against corruption would not be a "prudent" use of the territory's resources. Not, it's pretty obvious, while he's around, anyway. Evidence before the royal commission into union corruption over the past month suggests the ACT, its citizens and Australian taxpayers have lost tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, because of excess prices imposed by a corrupt building industry in Canberra Most of the problems shown in the Canberra sittings are home-grown and exist only because of slack administration by an ACT government and legal system that is, in any event, far too close to some of the apparent malefactors. Bidding cartels have jacked up prices, including the prices of houses and apartments for ACT workers. There was evidence of standover behaviour, demands for kickbacks and extortion by building union officials. Some were alleged to be abusing power for private gain, but there was also evidence that the union officials benefited collectively from other behaviour that was at the least improper. Some bosses paid the union subscriptions of employees. They did it, they said, not only to buy industrial peace but because officials wanted a base of tame members whose votes could be cast in union re-election campaigns. Relentless pressure on employees to enter essentially union-devised enterprise agreements was said to be because significant commercial benefits often flowed to the union leadership. The evidence of the next few weeks is expected to take this further. The end-up picture is of an ACT housing and construction industry market in which union officials exercised a good deal of improper control that is costing the general community, and the taxpayer, dearly. Union officials seemed often to have the power to select or blackball contractors and subcontractors. They could, and would, drive those who don't pay out of business or out of the territory. In some cases, it was said, unions urged subcontractors into price-fixing by agreed minimum tender rates for types of building work, with the union, in effect, promising that anyone not in the cartel would be punished by the union. Three men now face criminal charges alleging extortion, blackmail and improper use of power. These are matters for the courts. Beyond that however, are suggestions of corporate abuse of power by the union as a whole, with members as much as consumers the victims. And, very significantly for a ministry that does not think a standing corruption body would be prudent, is a strong innuendo that some of the power of union officials to call the shots has depended in part on ability to manipulate the occupational health and welfare inspection system. This has let them cloud payback and extortion with spurious claims of being motivated by worker safety. One can, it seems, find a safety issue anywhere if one wants to. Put bluntly, those who resisted union pressure would suddenly find their worksites made the subject of innumerable safety complaints and closed. There is at the least an innuendo that the ACT government health inspectorate system was being manipulated in the process and that some officials in other parts of the regulation system are easily intimidated away from their duty . Sometimes, building unions had direct conflicts of interest, themselves being major investors, through CFMEU operations such as the tradesmen's clubs, in building developments such as commercial and residential units in Lonsdale Street, Braddon. Investor power was used to pressure submission on enterprise agreements by workers, if, impliedly, not for the higher wages but side deals that benefited the union office. Labor folk have already developed a complacent alibi for the material emerging at the commission. It is said to be a political stunt by the Abbott government, a set-up to produce anti-Labor stories or smear at will. Just like the unimpressive inquiry in roof insulation, or efforts to fit Julia Gillard with a role in a union rort. Perhaps that's true. But its power to do so depends on there being fire behind the smoke, and Labor, around Australia, will not be sending thank-you cards to the ACT government for the clouds from here. Earlier hearings in other capitals failed to produce much. But then there was Bill Shorten, in his AWU days, being most unattractively shown to put his own interest ahead of workers he represented. And now we have the Canberra construction union, or CFMEU. There is nothing, of itself, criminal or improper in playing hard-ball in pursuit of better wages, or terms and conditions for workers, in Canberra or elsewhere. Indeed you are damned if you do, damned if you don't. Shorten has been accused by the Coalition of being a tame pussycat, indeed the bosses' darling, because his AWU could be charmed into settling for deals far inferior to those being demanded for the same types of workers by other unions. His "pragmatism" was said to be the more obvious because employers duchessed him, contributed to his industrial and political fundraising, and lent him executive jets. Officials, and the union offices, had acquired interests different from those of the people for whom they existed. By contrast, the CFMEU (sometimes, in the union movement, called the FUCME) is militant. It has long had a history of fighting hard and unapologetically to maximise pay and conditions. It has had an extra germ of grievance because building work is hard, often dangerous, sometimes lethal. Many employers have been themselves ruthless players whose good instincts or decency cannot be relied upon. In industrial warfare, one strikes, as it were, when the other is vulnerable, such as when there is a concrete pour. A claim of industrial danger or risk can seem to gird the official with righteousness as protector and custodian. The power of building unions has changed as more work became semi-skilled, and as the industry has come to rely more and more on small-scale subcontractors. Some operations go broke, leaving workers and suppliers unpaid. Major developers and contractors would often have their own commercial reasons, not least the costs of delay or waste for compromise or surrender to concerted union efforts, via pattern bargaining, to force up wage rates or working conditions. The work is boom and bust. Ordinary readers are entitled to a certain detachment and unconcern about what happens in this jungle. Most players are consenting adults. Pressure and bluff is a part of the game, and the tactical to and fro, including loud appeals to umpires or the crowd, are its stock in trade. The criminal law is not much involved. So far, it does not seem as if the Abbott government proposes to much change the rules in this regard. But there's the world of difference between using industrial muscle to achieve a clear and legitimate industrial outcome, and using it to achieve a secondary improper one. Deals putting the interests of advocates at odds with those of members, or which involve violence, theft, imposition, or the abuse or misuse of union power for personal purposes can be corrupt and/or illegal under the criminal law. (Abuse of power is not confined to the union side, even if that is outside the remit of a commission arranged for partisan purposes.). But there's a wider interest, too. Bargains made in the industry, as in all other industries, also affect the public interest, and the general economy. Higher wages, or vastly improved conditions, usually affect costs, whether as paid by ultimate consumers, or, at intermediate stages, by developers, contractors and clients. Corruption is a cancer that slows the economy and distorts efficiency. What this means in Canberra is, often, that major government office blocks, or apartments, or housing developments are more expensive than they should be. Taxpayers suffer. So do poor people, even union members. That must be balanced against higher spending, if that occurs, by lower-level wage earners. Or if there are actually improved safety conditions, fewer industrial deaths and accidents, with a lower level of social cost and family heartbreak. Alas, most of the royal commission's focus is not about this.. It's about yet further evidence that union management is increasingly distant from union membership. When it does, it's the membership that loses, the suits who win. It's corroding political Labor as much as industrial labour. Construction bosses do not "contribute" to general union coffers from the kindness of their hearts. The cost – the agreed consultancy, the private "fine", or the contribution to a political or union re-election fund – is a tax on workers' pay. Perhaps a reason not to join a union. Or not to vote Labor. Indeed most union members don't vote Labor. Many of the more conflicted unions' managements are making themselves less accountable to members by complex systems of union elections – having the result of making incumbents virtually impregnable. Such systems are perfectly legal under Gillard Labor legislation and morally corrupt. Tony Abbott would be doing unionists a favour by cleaning these rorts up. The interest of an ICAC, were there one in this, is not merely in pointing out, sometimes discovering, some of the obvious rorters and crooks as they pass us by. It is a fact that a good deal of the wrong-doing is being parlayed by industrial labour into power in the political labour machine. Here in Canberra, where we have perennial Labor government, potentially under undue influence in decision making. Union officials purport to think on behalf of all of their members. It's winner take all and officials use those votes to promote their own interests and personal beliefs. Unions wield power nationally, but also very locally. The CFMEU is a powerful force in ACT Labor, particularly on the Left. It expects a place at the table, and, often gets it. Sometimes it is about the obvious interests of members, or perceived interests (the CFMEU is in favour of every development, because it means building jobs). Sometimes it wants to be heard on its own development proposals, or those of its people, including contractors, in its orbit. Or on gambling and club matters. Corbell is the senior ACT minister from the left faction. I do not suggest that he is beholden to the CFMEU (though I cannot think of a single thing he has said or done in his career, that would have been likely to offend officials of that union). But his general attitude to transparency is that one would never know what place the CFMEU has at his table. By contrast, Andrew Barr is of the Right faction; its power base is in other unions.Other ministers, and backbenchers belong to factions. Perhaps it balances out, but how would one know if some consideration were receiving undue weight, or not enough? And where would one go if one thought it? Canberra is a very small place, in which the players constantly cross each others' paths. One can hardly be a government official in this community without being acutely aware of some of the power relationships and sensitivities. Few have confidence in existing accountability systems, already the weakest in the country. The AFP is both politicised and indisposed to be proactive about crime, particularly white collar crime. We need more transparency, more checks and balances, and more accountability. It is simply not prudent, or cheap, to be without an ICAC I expect that not a single member of the ACT Government had an inkling or idea of the state of affairs in the ACT building industry being revealed by the royal commission. Even making due allowances for the presumption of innocence about those charged (at least one of whom is a sub-branch president of a party branch), that suggests a level of innocence, incompetence that by itself screams for inquiry. What will it be next?

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