Major rail project manager accused of lying about infamous CFMEU brawl

Queensland CFMEU inquiry head Stuart Wood accused a manager of a major Brisbane rail project of “deliberately withholding evidence” of an infamous violent brawl that erupted when workers tried to break a union blockade.

The inquiry into the union and construction sector returned on Tuesday following a more than month-long hiatus, with witnesses called to piece together a Cross River Rail site altercation that spilt onto a public road.

The inquiry released images of 15 of the men – some of them masked – back in April, seeking to speak with them to ensure “all relevant perspectives are heard” about the “confrontational protest” of May 1, 2024, which culminated in a police escort.

The Dutton Park station incident came during an escalating campaign by the CFMEU against major contractor CPB, the inquiry heard, and was the result of a picket line established by some union members who had walked off sites.

Patrick O’Brien, the site manager from January 2024 to the end of last year, was called to give evidence late on Tuesday after several earlier witnesses recounted their versions of the incident, its lead-up and aftermath through testimony and written statements.

O’Brien, who did not provide a statement, was instead taken through logs of a WhatsApp group chat of various senior project figures describing union efforts to lock and blockade gates on April 30, 2024, and the transcript of an interview with inquiry staff from February this year.

Some messages showed O’Brien telling the group that that morning, a CFMEU organiser named “Dennis” had told him nobody was passing the picket line and “it will kick off if they try”, then asking whether it was worth “sneaking in” subcontractors or if this might escalate things.

James Donaghey, then the general superintendent to whom O’Brien’s boss, Ben Perry, reported to, cautioned against this and said he would catch up with another project figure O’Brien identified as Paul Elliott and get back to him.

The inquiry also heard from the site supervisor on Tuesday that Perry ultimately directed workers to leave the site on April 30 as a result of threats of violence from members of the CFMEU protest group.

O’Brien said he could not remember when asked whether “management” had told him to go ahead with an unusual May 1 pre-work meeting of CPB-Unity Alliance figures and other subcontractors in a car park near the site before trying to enter as a group through a newer, less-blockaded entry.

After giving similar responses to a range of other questions, including about the subsequent altercation and his response to it, Commissioner Stuart Wood remarked that O’Brien seemed to be having “a bit of trouble remembering things”.

Asked by Wood if anyone had spoken to him about “what you should recall and what you shouldn’t”, O’Brien denied this, saying it had been two years since the brawl. When asked if he had a “bad memory”, O’Brien replied: “I must do.”

After O’Brien was dismissed, Wood asked counsel assisting, Isabelle MacNicol, what options the inquiry had “in circumstances where a witness is obviously deliberately withholding evidence”. MacNicol said she would provide advice on Wednesday.

“I think that’s important because, as we go on, presumably more people will, for whatever reason, do what Mr O’Brien did, which is – there’s no final view about this, because he’ll get the chance to respond to any findings the commission makes about his evidence, but on this basis – he doesn’t look like he’s told the truth, and deliberately so,” Wood said.

Samantha Taylor, then a traffic co-ordinator with the CPB, described seeing some of the male workers making it through the human chain formed by CFMEU figures, with “very visibly distressed” female colleagues unable to do so, and ultimately sheltering with her in an off-site office for safety.

One electrical safety worker, Sky Lewis, said she and other female colleagues had disagreed with their male colleagues’ plan to try and enter the site as a group, worried it might draw too much attention and “would aggravate the CFMEU members”.

Lewis described in a sworn statement being “grabbed on the arm aggressively by a CFMEU man who then shoulder-shoved me backward” in the confrontation that ensued, which left her feeling unable to leave through a narrow roadside path.

“I felt trapped and terrified,” Lewis said. A labourer who was among those able to access the site on that day, Soane Taukalau – who was also a member of the union – told the inquiry he had seen Lewis grabbed, and “that’s when everything kicked off”.

On seeing another colleague involved in a physical altercation, Taukalau said he went to help and got in a verbal argument with one of the protesters, before being struck in the head and retaliating in what he said was self-defence.

Several video clips were shown to the inquiry throughout the hearing of various angles and snippets of the incident, one of which showed a fighting Taukalau and a handful of the protesters spilling out onto Noble Street.

Witnesses described threats of violence then being made by the protesters outside the site, as those workers who made it through the gate tried to begin work briefly before this was halted, and police eventually escorted workers away from the site.

The Federal Court granted an urgent injunction stopping the CFMEU from blocking workers accessing the site the following day.

Taukalau described feeling “hunted” by the union in the weeks after, with he and colleagues Tyson Langdon and Fou Ah Lam, who stood up to the protesters, told CFMEU delegates were trying to identify them.

Ah Lam, also giving evidence, reiterated his previously stated belief – denied by the union – that a subsequent attack on him by two masked people as he started his car one morning was CFMEU retribution.

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