Violence, betrayal and intimidation: Insider blows whistle on reality of CFMEU
Farrugia has also alleged he was threatened with violence to stay silent. Again, there is no suggestion by this masthead that Bozic was involved in these threats. But a tape recording of union officials discussing the Farrugia case confirms that serving senior union organisers separately witnessed intimidation directed towards Farrugia and those supporting him. “I had a lot of death threats put towards me,” Farrugia claimed in an interview. “I was told and advised many times that I was going to be ambushed. My car was going to get burnt. My house was going to get burnt.” Farrugia’s wife, Helena, alleges she overheard a well known ex-union figure with bikie links warn her husband “the Hells Angels were after us”. In the months after the Albanese government appointed Irving as administrator to take over the union, and Setka’s old position as union boss was filled by emerging union leader Zach Smith, Farrugia sought to raise his plight with the new union regime and began attending branch meetings to air his grievances. CCTV obtained by this masthead shows what happened at one meeting earlier this year: Farrugia, who is a short man, is surrounded by several members of the Croatian faction near the union’s entrance. The vision supports his claims he was surrounded and intimidated, although Bozic’s supporters claim (without evidence) that Farrugia provoked the confrontation. “I knew if I left that building there I was going to get brutally bashed,” Farrugia said. “And, you can see [on the CCTV]... they don’t care. It’s in the union office. If they can do that in the union office and not have any fear of getting in trouble, they’re untouchable. They were trying to scare me. Tell me, ‘Keep quiet’.” Senior union leader Gerry McQuaid is seen on the CCTV shepherding Farrugia into a room to protect him. In August, McQuaid and Smith, met with Farrugia and his wife at a cafe to discuss his concerns. Helena recorded the meeting on her phone and it records McQuaid acknowledging the earlier Bozic assault of Farrugia and condemning the ongoing efforts by Croatian faction members to ban and intimidate Farrugia. Smith is also recorded stating to Farrugia: “To be honest with you, I’m not discounting anything you’re saying. But at the end of the day, those matters shouldn’t prevent you from working. “I’m happy to talk to some of the senior people in the Croatian community too and just say we don’t need and we don’t want anyone, Charlie or anyone, getting set up in the workplace … the commitment is there to get you back on the job.” On the tape, McQuaid states of the alleged Bozic assault and Farrugia’s revenge attack: “If someone came and attacked me in my house, in front of my family, I would do exactly the same. “You don’t understand how many organisers think you’re a decent bloke … we know it’s coming from a certain group [that is preventing you working].” Farrugia said he suspected Smith was ultimately blocked by the Croatian faction, which, at least until Perkovic’s sacking for unrelated suspected corruption this week, is the most powerful grouping in the union, even while it is in administration. “I believe that he [Smith] knew that it was wrong, what’s happened to me, but he was in a position that he couldn’t help me because there was people above him,” Farrugia said, referring to Smith’s suspected desire to keep the Croatian faction onside for political reasons while simultaneously confronting wrongdoing. In a statement, Irving said that “numerous matters regarding Charles Farrugia and Lee Bozic were investigated by the administration” and had been referred to police, who recently contacted Farrugia. In respect of the specific perverting the course of justice, job-for-silence claim, Irving said it, too, was with police and that the union official allegedly responsible was sacked as part of a general union clean out in August 2024 and “cannot now return to the union”. Smith’s promise to help Farrugia find a job never materialised. Bozic remains a CFMEU delegate. Despite his repeated emails to the administration and government officials outlining his concerns, Farrugia believes he will never return to the construction industry. Farrugia hopes his story will lead to a thorough investigation by the administration and is prepared to be criticised for his own conduct, as long as any inquiry examines him as closely as others. He is still battling the fall-out of his neighbour dispute, with members of the Bozic family pressing for intervention orders and making fresh allegations of intimidation that the Farrugia family is contesting. An irony of Farrugia’s story is that while he will never again serve the union he once loved, he was one of a likely minority of CFMEU delegates who landed their initial union role the proper way, rather than through nepotism. Farrugia volunteered in union headquarters for three months in early 2022 to land his delegate’s job. But, once he began work on the Allan’s government’s Big Build, he witnessed an extraordinary scale of what he calls “cheating”. Farrugia is open about what no one in the union will publicly admit, even now: for years, the CFMEU secretly and successfully demanded Labor civil infrastructure projects give sweetheart jobs to union bosses’ relatives and mates, along with criminal gang members (Farrugia has never been a bikie and has no criminal record save for a 20-year-old affray charge). “Look, it’s not really talked about, but usually you’ve got to be related to get a job. If you’ve got a bit of a colourful background, you’re a big name, you’re going to get a job a lot quicker… I believe that everyone knew that’s the way it was going. They looked the other way,” he said of the way Big Build jobs were doled out. “I wouldn’t say just bikie. If you’ve got a bit of pull behind you, you’re going to get a job a lot easier than someone else… Obviously, the closer you are to the union, related [via family] and that, the better position you’re going to get put on. So all jobs are meant to be equal, but obviously the government jobs are the cream.”