MEDIA RELEASE – ALBANESE’S DISGRACEFUL SILENCE ON CFMEU OUTRAGE

Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash
Shadow Attorney-General
Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Senator for Western Australia

20 MARCH 2025

ALBANESE’S DISGRACEFUL SILENCE ON CFMEU OUTRAGE

It is a disgrace that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has remained silent for four days on the sickening treatment of women by CFMEU members and the rogue union’s links to organised crime revealed by 60 Minutes last Sunday.

Shadow Attorney-General, Senator Michaelia Cash, said: “Mr Albanese’s silence on these matters is just another sign of his weakness and proof he is unfit to be Prime Minister of this nation.’’

Horrific images were displayed on our TV screens over the weekend, with a bikie-linked health and safety representative, violently bashing a woman during his lunchbreak from a government funded infrastructure project.

The appalling treatment of other women, also exposed on the weekend, included at least one other bashing, a woman being locked in a small room at a building project and text messages asking for nude photos.

“Not much shocks me any more about the conduct of some members of the militant CFMEU but this made me sick to my stomach,’’ Senator Cash said.

“The fact our Prime Minister has not commented publicly on these matters is beyond belief,’’ she said.

“The Albanese Labor Government talks a big game about gender equity and the treatment of women in the workplace, but their words don’t align with their actions where their paymasters, the CFMEU, are concerned,’’ Senator Cash said.

“And where are the senior women of the Labor Government on this issue – why don’t they stand up and be counted on this issue. They should also be telling their Prime Minister he needs to act,’’ she said.

“The reality is Mr Albanese has spent his entire political career doing the bidding of the CFMEU. That is why he abolished the ABCC and that is why he won’t bring it back,” Senator Cash said.

The CFMEU have spent $11.5 million supporting the Labor Party since Mr Albanese became leader.

Only Peter Dutton and the Coalition will deregister the CFMEU, reinstate the ABCC with increased powers and clean up the construction sector.

ENDS