Queensland’s CFMEU inquiry puts a $500 million price on Labor’s building rules, and Steven Miles says sorry

Queensland’s inquiry into the CFMEU has told the state government it cannot wait for the final report: a new construction code and a regulator to police it are needed now.

Commissioner Stuart Wood KC released an interim report on Wednesday, more than a year before his final findings are due. After more than 50 days of hearings and evidence from over 80 witnesses, he said he had heard “highly disturbing evidence of misconduct by the CFMEU” and was satisfied there was an urgent and pressing need for change.

His target is Best Practice Industry Conditions, or BPIC, the set of wages and conditions Queensland’s former Labor government attached to its major building projects from 2018. Wood described the policy as damaging.

What did BPIC cost taxpayers?

Wood examined three big public projects: Brisbane’s Cross River Rail, the Centenary Bridge upgrade and the Gold Coast Light Rail. He put the cost attributable to BPIC at about $500 million on Cross River Rail, an increase of about 10 per cent, and $21 million on the Centenary Bridge, about 15 per cent.

He called those figures conservative, because they leave out the cost of delays.

To put the Cross River Rail figure in proportion: $500 million is roughly $90 for every Queenslander, spent on one project because of one procurement policy.

Wood also found the policy emboldened the CFMEU in a turf war with a rival union, which played out in what he called undesirable ways on site.

What does he want done?

Two urgent recommendations: a new building code for the industry, and a dedicated regulator to enforce it.

The state would use its buying power to make the code stick. Contractors and subcontractors that fail to comply would risk losing government work, and builders would have to show how they were reversing BPIC’s effects. Wood called the recommendations uncontroversial.

The lever is large. Queensland plans to spend about $119 billion on infrastructure over the next four years, much of it on the road, rail and venue works leading up to the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

What did Steven Miles say?

The Opposition Leader accepted responsibility for BPIC while maintaining it had been well intentioned. He said the CFMEU and some contractors had misused the policy and “the door was left too far open”.

“I accept that I could have and should have acted sooner,” Miles said, adding that he apologised for not doing so. He said BPIC would never again be the policy of a Queensland Labor Party he leads, and that the opposition would carefully consider the recommendations.

What will the government do?

Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie said the Crisafulli government had already committed to a building code and was considering the report, and would meet industry groups in the coming days. He said the changes could be made through government policy, without new laws, and that the code would target bullying and intimidation on sites while protecting safety and freedom of association.

The LNP government suspended BPIC soon after winning office in October 2024. But Master Builders Queensland deputy chief executive Michael Hopkins said many agreements struck under the policy are still in force and will expire over the next 12 months. The real test, he said, is whether the code lets builders reject unreasonable union demands when those deals are renegotiated.

“If productivity-sapping clauses are stripped away, that will save taxpayers billions of dollars,” Hopkins said.

Why does it matter beyond Queensland?

The CFMEU’s construction division has been under federal administration since 2024, after allegations of criminal infiltration in several states. Queensland’s inquiry is the first to put a detailed dollar figure on how a state government’s own procurement rules shaped costs on its biggest projects, and other states with large infrastructure programs will be reading it closely.

VNN will update this story as more is confirmed.