Building Bad, Stan review: corruption and power at the CMFEU

One of the things the Australian media isn’t always good at is getting their audience caught up. Old news is old news, and if you stumble onto a story half way through, it’s up to you to fill in the gaps.

That’s not much of an issue when the news is all about a mushroom murderer; when the story involves the foundations of our economy, leaving the audience in the dark is a real problem.

Watch the Building Bad trailer.

The latest documentary in Stan’s Revealed series, Building Bad, is a handy counter to that trend. Part recap, part expose on the expose, it’s a look at the ongoing story about corruption in the powerful building union, the CMFEU. Even if you’ve been keeping up with the news over the last few years, you’ll find a few new titbits in this overview.

Getting inside the tight-knit union to expose a string of dubious practices and dodgy deals – airing enough dirt to get the union basically shut down – was a feather in the cap of the media involved. A joint investigation between The Age, 60 Minutes, and the Australian Financial Review, it had the kind of time and resources poured into it that a lot of other stories don’t get.

Which is to say it was a story that had three journalists working on it instead of just one. Which might not seem like a lot for those used to US dramas were entire newsrooms swoop down on an issue, but as this documentary makes clear, three people working full time can dig up a lot of dirt.

Building Bad: ‘not nice people’

Where there’s dirt there’s also a lot of, as one journalist puts it, ‘not nice people’; Underbelly survivor and Melbourne construction industry figure Mick Gatto gets name-checked in the first two minutes. What’s quickly established here is that the construction world is a dangerous place run by menacing people who don’t like their dealings exposed, and it was up to a crack team of brave journalists to dig deep into what they describe as a decades-long culture of fear and silence.

Interestingly, right up front we’re told that the CMFEU drove a hard bargain and it paid off for its members: ‘What it means on the sites is you’ve got really good conditions and wages for the workers.’ And anyone with a knowledge of the Australian media knows that publications like The Age and the AFR aren’t traditionally seen to be on the side of the workers.

The argument here is that the CMFEU fell under the sway of a collection of people more interested in their own power and profit than benefiting their members. We’re told the story here is of a union that became more powerful than the state and federal government – at least on building sites. Would it use that power to help and protect its workers, or for corrupt, thuggish purposes? Well, we probably wouldn’t have a documentary if they decided it was the former.

Building Bad: making the case

This documentary does a good job of making that case. Alongside plenty of talking heads (the journalists tell much of the story themselves) and news footage, there’s secret recordings and video of union bosses acting like thugs and worse and stories of how rank and file members were treated like disposable assets in the union bosses’ power games.

Organised crime and bikies became involved, and eventually gained the upper hand, using threats and violence to direct money and business to their mates.

The main person portrayed as a villain here is former CMFU chief John Setka. Having risen up through the ranks as ‘union muscle’ and with links to deregistered union the BLF, he headed up the union in Victoria for over a decade.

Here he’s described as having turned the union into a cult, someone who ruled the CMFEU with an iron fist, and if that involved letting criminal elements creep into the union, so be it.

His public persona didn’t help matters either. Being convicted of harassment against his wife probably should have ended his career in public life, but he refused to go. According to those investigating him, it was seen as good for his brand – it didn’t dent his power on building sites.

Building Bad: juicy material

It’s all juicy material, and aside from a few slightly clumsy journalistic cliches early on this tells a persuasive story.

There’s no doubt the issues exposed are serious ones, possibly too serious for this to be your only source of information on the subject. It’s not saying all unions are bad, just all unions that get a mention here, and the line between ‘we made a deal’ and ‘we made a dodgy deal’ is sometimes a bit blurry.

It’s as an overview of corruption in a major sector of the economy, or as a look at how power (including the power of the media) actually operates in Australia, that Building Bad stands out. Can a building industry Underbelly spin-off be far away?

Revealed: Building Bad premieres on Stan on 3 August.

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