This opinion article by Business Council of Australia Chief Executive Bran Black was published in The Herald Sun on 5 June 2026.
If there is a single lesson from the CFMEU disaster, it is this:
When governments set specific rules that put union interests ahead of the public and taxpayers, corruption risk follows.
The more valuable the prize, the greater the temptation to rort the system.
That is why every Victorian and every Australian should be extremely alarmed by legislation introduced into federal parliament this week.
Buried inside the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment Bill is a provision that would allow the federal government to favour businesses with union-backed enterprise agreements when awarding taxpayer-funded contracts and grants. It deliberately gives the government the power to discriminate in favour of union-backed agreements.
This might sound harmless but it is not. It is a stone-cold corruption risk, underwritten by taxpayer money.
And it is the approach Victorians know all too well, because it is straight from the CFMEU playbook.
Australians have spent the past two years learning what happens when union influence and public money become intertwined.
Geoffrey Watson SC’s inquiry into the CFMEU exposed a union-backed EBA system and culture deeply compromised and prone to manipulation. His investigations found that some enterprise agreements became valuable commercial assets bought for cash, awarded through connections and used to advantage some businesses while shutting out others.
Watson himself described what the system had become: “The Victorian EBA system had become old-fashioned ‘pay to play’ corruption.”
Undercover recordings caught union fixer Harry Korras explaining it: “They don’t give out EBAs that easy … the Big Build is theirs. You can’t get in if you don’t know someone.” And the price of entry? “There’s a fee to get an EBA … all you’ve gotta do … pay the boys, make sure they’re OK. That’s business.”
Is that really a model we want to risk replicating anywhere government contracts are involved?
The legislation essentially undermines the most important principles when it comes to government: That taxpayer cash should be awarded on merit and value for money.
This model cost Victorian taxpayers an alleged $15bn. How many billions could this end up costing nationally?
Contracts should go to businesses that can deliver the best value and quality for taxpayers. Instead, the federal government is proposing to give itself the power to favour businesses that have a union-covered enterprise bargaining agreement.
That should alarm every Australian. The Big Build should be a warning, not a national blueprint.
Victorians have spent years watching costs escalate on major infrastructure projects and state debt and taxes rise, while allegations of misconduct, intimidation and corruption swirled around parts of the construction industry.
To be clear, the Business Council supports genuine enterprise bargaining. Enterprise agreements can lift productivity and provide benefits for workers and employers alike. But this debate is not about whether enterprise agreements are good or bad.
It is about whether taxpayers’ money should be allocated based on who has signed a union-backed enterprise agreement rather than who can best deliver the work.
Public money should go to businesses that can deliver, not businesses that have signed the right union agreement.
The government argues there is a carve out for the construction industry. But the legislation introduced into parliament does not contain an explicit construction industry carve-out.
And even if there were such a carve out, it would only reinforce the point.
If the government believes construction should be excluded because of the corruption risks associated with linking public contracts with union-backed agreements, then it is effectively acknowledging the very concern we are raising. By exempting the sector they are effectively saying they are concerned what happened in Victoria could happen federally.
The government’s second defence is that this is only a preference, not a mandate. Again, that misses the point. Corruption risks are created by incentives.
The moment government signals that union-backed agreements are to be preferred over others, that arrangement becomes more valuable.
Unions know it. And this does not reassure business.
If the power will not be used to favour union-backed enterprise agreements, why is it needed?
This legislation should not proceed, and government needs to be honest about it.
Australians expect public money to go to businesses that can deliver the work, not businesses that have signed the right union agreement.
That principle has served taxpayers well for generations.