Former department head given contempt warning, as probe calls for new building code

Résumé détaillé

A former top bureaucrat has continued his second day of tense evidence at Queensland’s CFMEU inquiry, which released its first interim report.

Queensland’s CFMEU inquiry boss has warned lawyers for a former top bureaucrat that he was at risk of being found in contempt over his professed inability to recall details of discussions at the heart of two key concessions granted to the union.

It comes as the $95 million Stuart Wood-led probe issued an interim report late on Wednesday making formal recommendations for the Crisafulli government to introduce a new state building code and establish a new regulator to monitor and enforce compliance.

The inquiry this week returned to a case study into regulatory capture of the workplace safety regulator by the union, focusing particularly on the pressure exerted by the CFMEU during the short-lived tenure of one of Michael De’Ath’s deputies.

Former Education Department director-general De’Ath, who in that role between 2021 and 2024 also oversaw the state’s industrial relations and racing offices, returned to the stand on Wednesday for a second full day.

His evidence included early efforts by the mega-department’s deputy director-general in charge of the Office of Industrial Relations, Kym Bancroft, to remove a CFMEU-favoured figure with responsibility for managing safety inspectors, which raised the ire of the union.

De’Ath, the most senior former public servant called to date, said on Tuesday he could not recall calls and texts with since-ousted CFMEU state secretary Michael Ravbar in early August 2022, after it was put to him by counsel assisting that Ravbar had expressed disdain over the decision.

After this and other efforts by Bancroft to address cultural issues within the office, union figures began calling her directly with site complaints and concerns, leading to a proposal for a general 1300 number to be established to field and triage complaints.

The inquiry heard on Wednesday that the union refused to engage in early consultation on this system, which was also backed and signed off by De’Ath in mid-March 2023, and that it was simultaneously pushing for Bancroft to…

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