Chants of ‘F*** Albo’ and ‘hands off our union’ have echoed through Sydney’s CBD as thousands of protesters supporting the embattled CFMEU swarmed the streets despite warnings against unauthorised strikes.
More than one thousand construction workers cheered and applauded ex-CFMEU NSW Secretary Darren Greenfield as he addressed the rally outside the state’s parliament on Tuesday.
It marked one of several protests held around the country with more than 10,000 workers walking off the site and demonstrations unfolding in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.
Mr Greenfield slammed the Labor Party after the federal government forced the CFMEU into administration last week, calling Prime Minister Anthony Albanese a ‘dity rotten bastard’.
Mr Greenfield lost his job as the CFMEU NSW boss on Friday, after the union’s construction and general arms were compelled to accept a government-appointed administrator.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Mr Greenfield told crowd.
Similar scenes have unfolded in other capital cities across the country, including Melbourne and Brisbane.
The federal government last week passed a Bill giving it powers to force the union, which has been dogged by allegations of widespread corruption and links to organised crime, into administration after securing a deal with the Coalition.
Mr Albanese earlier warned there will be ‘consequences’ if people walk off the job as part of the nationwide protests.
Speaking to reporters from the Western Sydney Airport construction site, the Prime Minister defended his government’s action on the CFMEU as being ‘in the interests of all trade unionists’.
‘We respect the work that construction workers do,’ he said.
‘It’s a tough job and they do magnificent work, including here at this wonderful airport.
‘What we want to do, though, is to make sure that their union is free of corruption.’
Pressed on whether forcing the CFMEU into administration cut back the ability of workers to unionise, Mr Albanese said the goal was ‘proper trade unionism’.
‘You need to have unions in the building industry, it’s a dangerous industry,’ he said.
‘But what we want to do is to make sure that they have a union that’s worthy of the incredible work that construction workers do.’
CFMEU members have marched through Brisbane CBD in a mass protest.
Mr Albanese also said: ‘If there is unprotected industrial action, then there are consequences for that.’
Shortly after Mr Albanese’s comments, NSW Police said it was responding to an unauthorised protest in Sydney’s CBD, with ‘rolling road closures’ along Macquarie St and Elizabeth St towards Hyde Park.
Some 300 CFMEU officials have been stood down since the union entered administration last week.
While Tuesday’s rallies have received backing from some unions, the CFMEU administrator has distanced itself from any strikes, with a spokesman saying that taking ‘unprotected industrial action is not lawful’ and the union is ‘no longer involved’ in the protests.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers weighed in on the protests, telling the ABC the government was expecting some ‘blowback’ for its action against the CFMEU but urged protesters to be ‘peaceful’.
He said that ‘when you appoint an administrator to a union and you move on a couple of hundred officials, there’s going to be blowback.’
‘We want these protests to be peaceful today, but they’re not surprising when you take on the leaders of a union with the sorts of behaviour that has been alleged in recent times,’ he said.