Before the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption Witness Statement in Response to Summons Public Hearings - Brisbane - Week commencing 4 August 2014 Statement of Mèdy Hassan National General Manager Hindmarsh Construction Australia Pty Ltd 1. I am the National General Manager of Hindmarsh Construction Australia Pty Ltd (Hindmarsh). I have been employed by Hindmarsh since 1996 and since 2008 I have been based in Brisbane, as part of Hindmarsh’s focus on developing its business interests in Queensland. 2. Hindmarsh is a multi-disciplinary business engaged in construction, property development, retirement services and capital management. The company was started by John Hindmarsh in the Australian Capital Territory in 1979 as a construction and property development company. After just a couple of years of offering specialised construction solutions for the nation’s capital, another office opened in South Australia. In the more than 30 years since, Hindmarsh has opened offices in Queensland and New South Wales. Enterprise agreement 3. When Hindmarsh was appointed to construct a 14-floor apartment building called “Brooklyn on Brookes” in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane (Project) in late 2012, we were approached by the union to negotiate an enterprise agreement. I understand from the State Manager at the time that the approach was made by Dave Hanna of the BLF (Hanna). 4. To that point we hadn’t had an enterprise agreement or much of a presence in Queensland. We acquired a Tier 3 builder in Queensland to help us establish a foothold in Queensland and bid for work here. To the best of my knowledge that business did not have an enterprise agreement. 5. Hindmarsh’s State Manager at the time handled the negotiations for the enterprise agreement. I wasn’t involved in the detail, although I did sit in on a couple of meetings, primarily to keep up to date. 2 6. When I moved to Queensland in 2008 I was surprised to find that the BLF still existed in Queensland, and that it operated alongside the CFMEU. In my observation, while they had the same or similar styles, the CFMEU and the BLF in Queensland had different leadership, and having two (2) sets of leadership to deal with didn’t help get things done. 7. In negotiating towards an enterprise agreement, Hindmarsh had to deal with Hanna for the BLF and someone (I can’t remember who) for the CFMEU. The CFMEU and the BLF didn’t always adopt consistent positions on some issues in discussions about an enterprise agreement. Again, I wasn’t directly involved and can’t remember which particular issues or what the respective positions were, but my impression from the reports I received from the State Manager at the time, is that the BLF appeared to be driving the negotiations more. Industrial issues 8. The statement of Ian Busch (Busch) describes the industrial action that occurred on the Project. My impression is that that industrial action had very little to do with Hindmarsh, and that it was more about the recently-merged CFMEU working out whether the former BLF or the former CFMEU faction was in control of the union in Queensland. 9. The CFMEU had a delegate on the Project, Jack Cummins (Cummins) and the BLF also had a delegate on the Project, Zoran Bogdanovic (Bogdanovic). At the time, we were only finding our feet in Queensland, trying to understand how business was done here and the union repeatedly told us that this was a normal way of doing business in construction in Queensland, that this was a lawful and accepted practice, and that both delegates would be working delegates. While I felt that one (1) delegate would be enough for the Project, I was repeatedly told by others I spoke with in the industry that we were lucky to have only two (2) delegates on the site. 10. Over time, Bogdanovic developed a pattern of spending more and more time on union business and the size of the Project didn’t justify having two (2) delegates, from affiliated or merged unions or at all. When the CFMEU and the BLF merged, Hindmarsh saw it as an opportunity to reduce the number of delegates on the Project. That meant that one had to leave the Project, and that’s what appears to have caused the issue. 11. In discussions between Busch and Chad Bragdon, an organiser with the union (and a BLF organiser before the unions merged) (Bragdon), Bragdon agreed to reduce the Legal/42825543_1 3 number of delegates on the Project to one (1), and nominated Bogdanovic as the one to go. Bragdon said Bogdanovic would leave the Project in two (2) weeks when he was transferred to another project closer to his home on the Gold Coast. 12. Almost all of the labour on the Project was employed by subcontractors or labour hire. The delegates were supplied to the Project by a labour hire provider. 13. When the merged union hadn’t reduced the number of delegates in the timeframe it said it would and Bogdanovic becoming a self-appointed non-working delegate, Hindmarsh asked Bogdanovic’s employer to give that delegate an operational role, to help us manage our productivity and headcount. When he refused to work as directed, we asked his employer to remove him from the Project. Bragdon made clear to Busch that this would be met with an escalating range of industrial action, and that’s exactly what happened. 14. Before the merger, both Bragdon and Bogdanovic were with the BLF. 15. I believe that this was the former BLF faction of the CFMEU flexing its muscle, inside the union, outside the union (with Hindmarsh and Fair Work Building) and generally. 16. I also believe that these issues may have played out at the Project because the union or Bragdon thought Hindmarsh was an easy target. We’re not a listed multi-national constructor and we don’t have a huge footprint in Queensland yet. 17. I also believe that these issues were not necessarily related to Hindmarsh, and that, in no small part, the Project site just happened to be the workplace where these internal tensions between the former BLF and former CFMEU factions played out. .................................................................... Mèdy Hassan Friday Twenty Fifth of July 2014 ............................ Date Legal/42825543_1
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