A Riverfire fireworks display in Brisbane was almost cancelled after people attending a viewing party entered the unfinished Kangaroo Point Bridge, an inquiry into the CFMEU has heard.
Bradley Ross, Queensland operations manager for construction company BESIX Watpac, told the inquiry he allowed CFMEU site delegate Cameron Paul to bring his family to the worksite for the 2023 event.
Mr Paul later brought at least seven other union officials and their families, with around 40 people eventually seen on the site, according to police body-worn camera footage shown to the inquiry.
Some of the group went on to the incomplete bridge, including an area around a crane in the Brisbane River. None was wearing protective equipment or had been formally inducted, the inquiry heard.
An email submitted as evidence said the intrusion delayed the fireworks and “very nearly caused it to be cancelled”. People had to be cleared from the bridge before the show could begin.
Brisbane Festival operations manager Christophe Broadway wrote that the display could not start while people remained on the bridge, which was inside the fireworks exclusion zone.
A BESIX Watpac project manager was told that the group had entered through a section of fencing where no security guard was stationed and had been removed after being spotted.
However, police footage indicated that account was incomplete. Officers entered from the CBD end of the bridge and were met by Mr Ross, who accompanied them as they cleared the site.
The footage showed Mr Paul alongside CFMEU officials Dean Rielly, Dylan Howard, Hayden Jones, Cody Budgen, Jon Paul, Hoani Edwards and Dean Mattas, as well as young families.
Mr Ross, who was not originally due to give evidence this week, denied allowing the officials access to the bridge to win favour with the union. He said Mr Paul had asked at short notice whether other people could attend.
“I didn’t send an invite out to anyone other than my family,” Mr Ross said.
Asked by counsel assisting the inquiry, Eddy Gisonda KC, whether the CFMEU had “gatecrashed” what was intended to be a family gathering, Mr Ross replied: “They’re powerful terms, but that’s probably a fair assessment.”
Commissioner Stuart Wood questioned whether Mr Ross had nevertheless provided a favour to the union by allowing the group to remain at the worksite.
Mr Ross said the request had been “sprung on me at the last minute”. Refusing entry, he said, would “probably have done me a disfavour”, but he insisted he was not seeking favour from the CFMEU.
BESIX Watpac and John Holland formed the consortium that was last month all but confirmed as the builder of Brisbane Stadium at Victoria Park, a project the CFMEU has pledged to build.
