Minister likely struck deal with CFMEU on complaint line: ex-bureaucrat

Detailed summary

Grace Grace’s former department boss has told a Queensland inquiry it was a ‘logical conclusion’ a regulator’s union-friendly backtrack involved the then-minister.

Former minister Grace Grace likely struck an agreement with the CFMEU to pause a union-opposed push by the workplace safety regulator for a new complaint triage system amid a campaign which effectively turned the head of that office into a call centre operator, her then-top bureaucrat says.

But former Education Department director-general Michael De’Ath has denied he dismissed his short-lived deputy in charge of the Office of Industrial Relations, Kym Bancroft, because of pressure from the CFMEU, in evidence to Queensland’s inquiry into the construction union and sector.

The inquiry has this week returned to a case study into regulatory capture of the office by the union, with three full days spent by counsel assisting Dimitri Ternovski questioning De’Ath over key concessions granted to the union during Bancroft’s time in the role between 2022 and 2023.

These included the retention of union official Kurt Pauls on the selection panel for an executive director overseeing workplace compliance and inspectors, the removal of Bancroft from that panel, and a halt on implementing the call triage system.

The inquiry has heard that the union’s campaign of calling Bancroft directly emerged after she sidelined a since-sacked “friend of the CFMEU”, Helen Burgess, and amid her efforts to address related cultural issues within the office.

Amid escalating hostilities by the union, a triage proposal from Bancroft – initially backed by De’Ath – was ultimately placed on what would be an indefinite pause after a meeting between Grace and key union figures including then state secretary Michael Ravbar.

De’Ath agreed on Thursday that he had shifted from his earlier evidence that the pause was his decision, instead categorising it as a collective one which emerged from a meeting with Grace.

Ternovski then took De’Ath to subsequent emails between his staff coordinating a response on behalf of Bancroft to an earlier letter from Ravbar, drafts of which featured language appearing to describe an…

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