CFMEU administrator moves to fill Cbus vacancies

The CFMEU administrator has moved to fill the vacancies that opened up on the Cbus board last month. 

Among the three nominees are Paddy Crumlin, the national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia and national president of the CFMEU; Jason O’Mara, the CFMEU’s former ACT secretary, who just recently resigned from the board; and Lucy Weber, a CFMEU official, Cbus confirmed.

In a statement on Friday, the fund’s CEO Kristian Fok confirmed three nominees have been put forward to fill vacancies on the board, including the renomination of O’Mara.

“The CFMEU has advised Cbus of its proposed nominees to our board, which will now be considered by a committee of the board,” he said.

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According to media reports, Crumlin’s nomination is particularly controversial given he protested the appointment of an administrator at the CFMEU, referring to it as “an attack on every working man and woman in the country” at a recent rally. 

While a committee at Cbus is now expected to deliberate on the nominations, the media widely expects these to be accepted without objection.

Previously, Cbus announced the departure of three union-appointed directors, including O’Mara, following directives made by the administrator of the CFMEU in late August. 

O’Mara and former NSW construction president Rita Mallia are understood to have stepped down while a third member, Dave Noonan, was reportedly removed by the CFMEU administrator.

The resignations came after an APRA directive, issued just weeks earlier, required Cbus and BUSSQ to assess the fitness of their CFMEU-affiliated directors through independent reviews.

At the time, citing public allegations of serious misconduct within the CFMEU, APRA said it “is concerned about the potential impact on trustees”.

Last week, BUSSQ also confirmed board changes prompted by the CFMEU administrator.

Moreover, a third fund, First Super, was thrown into the spotlight when its co-chair, also a national secretary of the CFMEU manufacturing division, was accused by APRA of breaching several director covenants in the SIS Act.

The apparent close ties between unions and super funds have come under particular scrutiny in recent weeks, with the opposition accusing the government of allowing union-affiliated industry super funds to prosper at the expense of their members.