Monday, 13 October 2025

E&OE

Chris Smith:

Tim, you are actually in charge of this portfolio for the Opposition though aren't you?

Tim Wilson:

I am, I'm Shadow Minister for industrial relations and employment but that's all right.

Chris Smith:

Yeah, let's get it right. This in particular is an important point to make because this was supposed to be the great reform of the CFMEU.

Tim Wilson:

Well, the Minister has said that it's the strongest possible course of action that they appointed an administrator. Mick Gatto doesn't seem to think so. John Setka doesn't seem to thinks so. And the Prime Minister's golden boy, the head of Victorian Division of CFMEU, Zach Smith doesn't seem to thing so because he's been organising meetings for his officials with Mick Gatto and he personally has met with John Setka, the man who was organising organised crime and criminal gangs and bikey gangs to be involved in CFMEu projects. So what has happened before continues to go on under this administrator and the Government is doing nothing.

Chris Smith:

Why would they be able to convince anyone that it's sensible to meet these characters, the likes of Setka and that other terrible character, Gatto?

Tim Wilson:

This is a question everybody is asking because from what we understand from public evidence last week, it appears that the administrator even gave the green light to Zack Smith meeting with John Setka. An extraordinary thing to have done, if true, and we're waiting on answers from him. So we're going to be sending questions to the Administrator to clearly ask what has he been signing off on and what has he been approving because really this increasingly looks like a cover up from the Administrator for the union to continue operating as though nothing changed.

Chris Smith:

It has the stench of deals being done to plug a few gaps, some old wounds.

Tim Wilson:

100%, well, I mean, the point of the administrator, as much as anything else to me was a trick by the Labor Party to stop the expose of the corrupt relationship between organised crime, the unions and the Labor party itself, because the Labor party is built on the power and patronage of the union movement. And so by putting a spotlight on the union, if you expose it, you expose the deeply corrupt nature between the two institutions. They're just trying to get off the headlines, but the reality is Australians are paying because every time you get bikey gangs, organised crime into these public projects, we as taxpayers get less value, higher costs, higher taxes and bigger debt.

Chris Smith:

And your cynicism is accurate because at the end of the day the Labor Party doesn't want to knock back the money it gets from the CFMEU, Tim, do they?

Tim Wilson:

No and in fact you've got in Queensland a new inquiry that's just started looking specifically at CFMEU and CFMEU violence and there was a report that was done in the lead up to that inquiry, an independent report which found when public servants were going to the CFMEU after the election of the last Labor Government the response from the officials was from CFMEU was we write the law we're the ones who dictate what happens and public servants you work for us now, not for the people. And that's the problem. It's a corrupt patronage network.

Chris Smith:

Exactly. Tim Wilson, thank you very much for your time.

ENDS