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The senior barrister appointed to clean up the corruption and crime-tainted CFMEU, Mark Irving, has quit in a major challenge to the Albanese government’s attempts to reform the sector.
His departure comes two months after he launched an internal investigation into the treatment of two women by his former second-in-charge, national secretary Zach Smith, whose own sudden resignation from the CFMEU in January came amid serious disclosures from the two women.
Irving’s resignation as administrator is the most serious challenge to face Labor’s reform plan for the scandal-ridden union while fending off opposition calls for the CFMEU’s deregistration or a royal commission, including into the union’s abuse of its power on taxpayer-funded building sites across the nation.
Irving and Smith’s respective departures leave the Albanese government and the ACTU without the two men they hand-picked to lead one of Australia’s most powerful unions out of its corruption mire and as entrenched organised crime in the construction sector continues to flare up, including in the form of recent firebombings targeting major construction firms in NSW and Victoria.
In a statement released on Monday evening after this masthead broke the story of his resignation, Irving confirmed his departure and said it was appropriate for a union than a barrister to lead the next stage of union reform.
“The union is changing its personnel. It is changing its culture. It is regaining its position in civil society. It is changing how it engages with employers, employer groups, regulators, governments, other unions and other industry partners. This rebuilding phase is the most important stage of administration,” he said.
In a coup for CFMEU reformists, respected union boss Michael Crosby has agreed to immediately step into Irving’s national role. In NSW, Crosby has spent months aggressively cleaning out the CFMEU branch formerly led by jailed bribe-taker Darren Greenfield, while also publicly calling out suspected organised criminals on government projects.
The Queensland commission of inquiry into the CFMEU is also still producing damaging headlines about the union’s conduct in that state, including last week’s revelation that a state minister threatened to tear up a $1.5 billion contract on a federally funded road project if a company failed to make peace with the union.
Crosby will now attempt to finish what Irving had sought but ultimately failed to do: reform the CFMEU’s most powerful and troubled branch, in Victoria.
This masthead has spoken to six CFMEU sources with knowledge of the resignations, internal inquiries and upheaval to inform this story. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.
In a sign of the problems still facing the Victorian branch, former national secretary of the tertiary education union Matt McGowan has also been immediately installed to lead the CFMEU’s Melbourne headquarters, replacing veteran CFMEU figure Nigel Davies. Davies’ previous leadership role was supported by CFMEU veterans Lisa Zanatta and Gerry Ayers.
Like Crosby, McGowan is a career unionist but construction industry outsider and, given the latter, is likely to face hostility from CFMEU figures from the ousted regime still loyal to former secretary John Setka.
McGowan becomes the fourth unionist to be appointed to run the CFMEU’s Victorian branch after the Albanese government put the union into administration in August 2024. Graeme McCulloch lasted just a few weeks, Smith resigned after 18 months and Davies is now gone after just over three months.
In NSW, Crosby’s job will be filled by Karma Lord.
Irving’s departure had long been on the cards. Since his appointment, he has suffered two heart attacks, was living under full-time security protection following a credible threat to his safety, and had sought to implement major reforms to remove organised crime from the union and reduce the influence of rotten unionists from the Setka-era regime.
Irving was criticised internally for labouring over, or delaying, some key decisions – a problem fuelled by his ill health– and for placing too much trust in Smith, despite the younger man’s missteps.
Late last year Irving stood by Smith after he ordered a union organiser to meet gangland figure Mick Gatto in a park over an industrial dispute.
He stood by him again after Smith promoted two unionists long suspected of corruption, including suspected bribe-taker John Perkovic.
But Irving also acted quickly when allegations of serious wrongdoing reached his desk. When this masthead revealed Perkovic’s alleged graft, Irving sacked him and called in the federal police to investigate.
After the Gatto park meeting was also revealed by this masthead, Irving overhauled union policy to drive Gatto from the construction industry.
After this masthead revealed Irving had sought the removal of disputed but politically explosive allegations from a major report by corruption-buster Geoffrey Watson, Irving responded by immediately releasing the controversial material.
Watson’s findings of the estimated $15 billion cost of the Victorian Labor government’s indifference to serious corruption caused a firestorm that still dogs the ALP.
Sources said Irving’s most significant contribution was to direct Smith and other union leaders to sack dozens of CFMEU staff and organisers in a once-in-a-generation clean-up that, while leading to unrest and leadership instability, may have given the union the best chance of avoiding deregistration.
Sources insist an exhausted Irving was planning to resign well prior to one of his last acts as administrator, the February 13 public announcement it was “investigating allegations made against a former officer of the union”.
That investigation was into Zach Smith, who had suddenly quit the CFMEU weeks earlier citing “personal reasons” and with plaudits from his fellow union bosses.
Sources have confirmed the real reason for Smith’s resignation and the subsequent internal inquiry concerned Smith’s interactions with two women who worked for the union.
Smith was effectively forced out of the union the day after one of the two women disclosed to the administration in early January that she had a consensual intimate relationship with him while he was her boss – a relationship Smith had repeatedly lied about to Irving, and a serious breach of workplace policy given the power imbalance involved.
The second woman and former CFMEU employee who has raised concerns about Smith did so initially while Irving was on leave in September 2025, and then again on at least two occasions after this, sparking Irving’s internal inquiry.
Serious claims about Smith’s conduct raised by the woman, whom this masthead is not naming to respect her privacy, include further failures of disclosure by Smith to Irving. Sources inside the administration said some of the allegations about Smith’s conduct raised by the woman had been accepted as factual.
Asked to comment on the allegations involving Smith, Irving declined to discuss specifics.
“Throughout my time as administrator, I have attempted to abide by some basic principles including that staff should act with integrity and honesty, workplaces should be safe for all workers and that everyone should be treated with respect and dignity. I remain committed to those principles,” he said in a statement.
“Expedience is not a sufficient justification for breaching confidences or disrespecting the privacy of others.”
In mid-2024, Smith was backed by state and federal Labor governments to reform the CFMEU as its national secretary and, later, the head of the Victorian branch in the wake of the Building Bad series.
Smith has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
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Nick McKenzie is an Age investigative journalist who has three times been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 20 Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs and criminal justice.Connect via email.From our partners
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