The Coalition's legislation that would raise maximum fines from $750.000 to $10 million for secondary boycotts is no certainty to become law after Nick Xenophon Team senators joined the Greens and Labor to declare it would not support it.
The CFMEU construction and general division's Victorian branch spent $13.1 million on legal costs in the 12 months to the end of last year, up more than five-fold from $2.3 million in 2014.
Senator Malcolm Roberts says he has won backing from the Pauline Hanson's One Nation party room to investigate further IR changes by "working with the Turnbull Government".
Concrete supplier Boral suffered "substantial losses and damage" from a boycott organised by the Victorian CFMEU because it was a crucial supplier to Grocon, the Federal Court heard today.
The trial of the ACCC's secondary boycott case against the CFMEU construction and general division's Victorian branch has been delayed until September, to avoid clashing with the controversial blackmail charges against union leaders John Setka and Shaun Reardon.
CFMEU construction and general division Victorian branch leaders John Setka and Shaun Reardon will go to a contested committal hearing in March next year on the blackmail charges brought by the Royal Commmission police taskforce over the 2013 Boral concrete bans.
Victoria Police have today charged CFMEU construction and general division Victorian branch secretary John Setka and his deputy Shaun Reardon with blackmail, for allegedly pressuring concrete supplier Boral over its relationship with the builder Grocon.
The CFMEU construction and general division Victorian branch will pay up to $9 million in damages and costs to Boral and has given an undertaking that it won't renew its blackban on the company's concrete supplies, under a settlement deal announced today.
