Union leaders Jacqueline King and Stacey Schinnerl on witness list for probe’s second hearing block
In case you missed it, last week our state politics reporter Matt Dennien reported on a flawed arrangement between the industrial relations office and Queensland police, which allowed CFMEU officials who had been stripped of their right of entry permits to argue their way onto building sites for years.
The flawed memorandum of understanding allowed banned CFMEU officials to argue their way onto worksites.Credit: Monique Westermann
And the public servant listed as the point of contact for any dispute where police were called was the same person described in inquiry hearings as having a “very close relationship” with “somebody senior in the CFMEU office”.
Helen Burgess, who was disciplined over how she dealt with a CFMEU complaint sent to her personal phone, was named in investigator Geoffrey Watson’s June report into violence in the union as a former bureaucrat who was being probed by the Crime and Corruption Commission.
According to Watson’s evidence to the state government inquiry into the union, the unnamed union official and Burgess, then the Workplace Health and Safety’s construction compliance and field services director, wielded their power to order inspectors around.
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