Police have laid blackmail charges against the two most senior figures in Victoria’s powerful construction union.

CFMEU Victorian secretary John Setka and his deputy Shaun Reardon are facing blackmail charges after being arrested on Sunday in separate operations that a senior union official said “reek of overkill”.

The union slammed the way the men were arrested in front of their family and children.

“The CFMEU has cooperated with every request from the royal commission and the police could have conducted their business at the office during working hours,” CFMEU construction division national secretary Dave Noonan said in a statement.

Mr Noonan said both men would plead not guilty to the charges.

The pair were investigated by Taskforce Heracles, a joint Victorian and federal police unit that takes on cases referred from the Royal Commission into Trade Union Corruption and Governance.

In a statement on Sunday, Victoria Police said it had arrested a 51-year-old from West Footscray and a 47-year-old from Ocean Grove and charged each with one count of blackmail.

The charges are understood to relate to Boral and its supply of concrete to Grocon, a developer that has been the target of CFMEU industrial action.

In a statement, Mr Noonan said “treating union officials like fugitives on the run was obviously designed to create maximum political damage to the union with little regard for their families”.

“The community expects more of the police. We should be able to trust that our police are not doing the grunt work of a Government desperate to mount an attack on the working rights of people in this country,” he said.

“The Federal Liberal Government has taken 57 police and assigned them to a taskforce whose only achievements to date include two theatrical raids whose legality is in doubt, the prolonged questioning and harassment of staff in their homes, the failed pursuit of Johnny Lomax without any evidence and now, the hyper-staged arrests of two senior officers of the union.”

Victoria Police said a “lengthy investigation” had led to the charges.

Both men have been granted bail and will appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

-AAP

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/12/06/cfmeu-vic-officials-charged-blackmail/

Good job, Police! Lets hope the Judge throws the book at them - HARD!!!  :)

.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Dec 7^th, 2015 at 11:13am:

Good job, Police! Lets hope the Judge throws the book at them - HARD!!!  :)

10 to 15 years ought to sort the scum out.

BlueBeard wrote on Dec 7^th, 2015 at 11:17am:

Armchair_Politician wrote on Dec 7th, 2015 at 11:13am: Good job, Police! Lets hope the Judge throws the book at them - HARD!!!  :) 10 to 15 years ought to sort the scum out.

And the idiot Left thought this RC was a waste of time/money!  ;D ;D ;D

Armchair_Politician wrote on Dec 7^th, 2015 at 11:48am:

BlueBeard wrote on Dec 7th, 2015 at 11:17am: Armchair_Politician wrote on Dec 7th, 2015 at 11:13am: Good job, Police! Lets hope the Judge throws the book at them - HARD!!!  :) 10 to 15 years ought to sort the scum out. And the idiot Left thought this RC was a waste of time/money!  ;D ;D ;D

Ban on Australian Federal Police examining documents seized in CFMEU raid extended

By Nick Wiggins

Posted 30 minutes ago


Federal Police raid CFMEU in Brisbane
Photo: Australian Federal Police raided CFMEU offices in Brisbane in November. (AAP: Dan Peled)



Map:  Brisbane 4000

An order banning the Australian Federal Police (AFP) from examining documents seized from the Queensland branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has been extended until next year.

A full hearing on the validity of the search warrants used to execute the raid on the union's Brisbane office last month will be heard at the end of February.

Until then an interim order preventing police from using the documents remains in place.

At a directions hearing in the Federal Court, barrister for the AFP Roger Derrington QC asked for the matter to be dealt with "expeditiously".

"Investigations or charges ought not be held up by satellite litigation," he told the court.

"This does impede the investigations of the Australian Federal Police".

Lawyer for the CFMEU Tony Slevin told the court the AFP seized a computer drive containing "a lot of documents".

"The scope of the material taken from my client's premises, because of the number of documents on that drive ... It's way beyond the warrant," Mr Slevin said.

"The only urgency is the police would like to have access to that full drive".

The February hearing will determine whether the injunction on the documents should be made permanent.

It is expected to run for three days.

WHAT ARE THESE PRICKS HIDING  >:( >:(

Bit of context:

Jeff Sparrow on those well-publicised arrests this morning:


Quote:

[P]olice arrested Setka and Reardon because of the CFMEU’s campaign against Grocon. The two weren’t shaking down individuals for cash. They didn’t have their fingers in the till. They didn’t stand to benefit personally at all. They were enforcing a union black ban in the context of a long-running industrial dispute: it’s because of that they face up to fifteen years in jail. To put the penalty in perspective, note that in 2013 a wall collapsed on a Grocon construction site, killing three people on Swanston Street. Grocon accepted responsibility – and paid a $250 000 fine. The comparison is not made at random. The Grocon dispute is often portrayed as a power struggle, nothing more – a contest over influence between a major firm and a major union. It’s invariably discussed by political pundits exclusively in terms of its consequences for the political fortunes of Bill Shorten, Daniel Andrews or the ALP more generally. The commentariat rarely mentions the CFMEU’s central demand: union-appointed OH&S representatives to monitor safety on site. Why might that be important? Because 185 people died in workplace accidents last year, because construction remains one of the most dangerous industries in the nation, and because the average fine a company receives for a fatal incident stands at about $100 000. That’s right: if you’re a boss whose shoddy practices leave an employee dead, the cops are not going to pull over your car or come knocking on your doorstep. Criminal prosecutions for industrial negligence are vanishingly rare; the civil penalties imposed so light as to be almost meaningless (does a billion-dollar company even blink at a hundred grand?). Yet in an industry where time equals money, there are obvious material incentives for employers to rush jobs, to take shortcuts, and to skimp on safeguards, particularly in the context of the governments’ drive to reduce ‘red tape’ and restrictions.

https://overland.org.au/2015/12/black-bans-and-blackmail/

Jovial Monk wrote on Dec 7^th, 2015 at 12:30pm:

Bit of context: Jeff Sparrow on those well-publicised arrests this morning: Quote: [P]olice arrested Setka and Reardon because of the CFMEU’s campaign against Grocon. The two weren’t shaking down individuals for cash. They didn’t have their fingers in the till. They didn’t stand to benefit personally at all. They were enforcing a union black ban in the context of a long-running industrial dispute: it’s because of that they face up to fifteen years in jail. To put the penalty in perspective, note that in 2013 a wall collapsed on a Grocon construction site, killing three people on Swanston Street. Grocon accepted responsibility – and paid a $250 000 fine. The comparison is not made at random. The Grocon dispute is often portrayed as a power struggle, nothing more – a contest over influence between a major firm and a major union. It’s invariably discussed by political pundits exclusively in terms of its consequences for the political fortunes of Bill Shorten, Daniel Andrews or the ALP more generally. The commentariat rarely mentions the CFMEU’s central demand: union-appointed OH&S representatives to monitor safety on site. Why might that be important? Because 185 people died in workplace accidents last year, because construction remains one of the most dangerous industries in the nation, and because the average fine a company receives for a fatal incident stands at about $100 000. That’s right: if you’re a boss whose shoddy practices leave an employee dead, the cops are not going to pull over your car or come knocking on your doorstep. Criminal prosecutions for industrial negligence are vanishingly rare; the civil penalties imposed so light as to be almost meaningless (does a billion-dollar company even blink at a hundred grand?). Yet in an industry where time equals money, there are obvious material incentives for employers to rush jobs, to take shortcuts, and to skimp on safeguards, particularly in the context of the governments’ drive to reduce ‘red tape’ and restrictions. https://overland.org.au/2015/12/black-bans-and-blackmail/

you know monk... we should all read that...

I have a question..

they talk about shoddy and careless bosses..

so if thats the case why allow men on the site in the first place???>..

if a boss is going to get find ....even $100.000 isnt to be sneezed at..

why would he not only RISK a FINE buit also STRIKES and nit picking from union delegates...

WHY WOULD HE RISK IT..??

thats what I am saying..

that wall that fell mate was the WIND...awful I know...but the WIND brings down trees...and kills people... ::) ::)... if that wall should have been secured surely it was the duty of the union to see that it was...????????..

I dont know I wasnt there...

its just that some...Mr sparrow maybe!!!! only tell one side of the story..


185 died on construction sites in 12 months terrible i agree...but it is a dangerous place to work...

and driving on the roads too and from work is also dangerous......

its a risk we all take day in day out..

A wall should not fall down. Shoddy, cheap materials/workmanship. Cost three people, who had no connection to construction at all, their lives.

Nobody in the construction game is an angel. The TURC would have been much more useful if it had investigated companies too and had an especial good look at safety.

That it interrogated Gillard, a former PM, about some minor affair 20 years before is an insult to the dignity of the office.