“We’ll never apologise for giving people second chances in life, especially when they show dedication to improving the rights and safety of our members.”
Edmond Margjini used to be an underground cage fighter in Czechoslovakia.
The Sword Boys gang arose in the 2000s and was accused of being involved in drug dealing, firebombings and drive-by shootings.
Mr Margjini was a member in his 20s and recorded convictions for assault occasioning bodily harm and three common assaults between 2002 and 2004 during his time as a nightclub bouncer.
But in 2010 he told The West Australian he had left his colourful past behind and chosen a new path as a businessman in construction, working on the troubled $550 million Raine Square development for Bankwest’s new headquarters.
“The only gang I care about these days is my family,” he said at the time. “My old life is an old story. It’s like an old book.”
‘Wilful destruction of property’
Later that year, while on the Raine Square project, he was charged with threatening to slit the throats of two former business partners linked to the development and breaking into their city office and stealing documents. He was acquitted of the charges, according to justice department records.
Edmond Margjini leaving Perth Magistrates Court in 2010 after pleading not guilty to threatening to kill two former business partners.
In 2011, he was arrested after allegedly fleeing from police and hiding drugs and was charged with possession and intent to sell methylamphetamine. However, a jury again found him not guilty.
The following year, he got into a fight that allegedly involved him threatening to burn down a factory while his associate smashed a car with a letterbox.
Police charged Mr Margjini with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, three counts of destroying or damaging property and one count of threatening to destroy property. He denied the threats and said at the time he had been defending himself. He was fined $2500 for “wilfully and unlawfully destroying or damaging property” but was acquitted of the five other charges.
Mr Margjini did not return requests for comment about his right of entry application or his past convictions.
The former professional fighter, who has been employed as an organiser for the CFMEU since at least 2022, used to be a friend of larger-than-life ex-CFMEU WA boss Kevin Reynolds.
The union chief formed a relationship with Mr Margjini after watching him fight in a mixed martial arts contest and once hired him as an industrial officer.
Mr Margjini was photographed with Mr Cook at a dinner function at Perth’s Duxton Hotel in October 2021 when the now premier was health minister.
Edmond Margjini (left) with then health minister now WA Premier Roger Cook (right) at a dinner in Perth’s Duxton Hotel on October 15, 2021.
A spokesman for Mr Cook said the event was a black-tie ball for a local soccer club in his electorate of Kwinana and he did not know Mr Margjini’s background when he met him.
Edmond Margjini poses with Roger Cooke at the dinner in 2021.
“He was not aware of any allegations against any attendee at the event,” the spokesman said.
“Members of the public regularly ask for pictures with the premier, including in his previous role as health minister.”
The CFMEU is part of WA’s “Progressive Labor” faction that helped deliver Mr Cook the premiership last month following a split in the Labor Left. The faction is dominated by Labor Right unions, such as the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, Transport Workers Union and Australian Workers Union.
Call for ‘tougher scrutiny’
Federal opposition industrial relations spokesman Michaelia Cash referenced Mr Margjini’s permit application at a recent Senate estimates hearing where she quizzed the Fair Work Commission whether a former member of the Sword Boys gang would count as a fit and proper person for an entry permit.
Under the Fair Work Act, the FWC can consider a person’s “intentional use of violence against another person or intentional damage or destruction of property” in applying the test for permits.
The Australian Building and Construction Commission used to have an express pathway to intervene in such cases. But that mechanism did not carry over to the Fair Work Ombudsman, which regulates the industry since the ABCC was abolished in February.
The FWO told Senate estimates its approach was not to make submissions on right of entry applications and it only intervened if the FWC invited it to.
Even then, while it may seek to inform the FWC about workplace breaches, FWO Sandra Parker said the agency did not make submissions on convictions as “we don’t cover criminal matters”.
“We would expect the FWC to do its own research on that,” she told estimates.
She confirmed the FWO has not so far intervened in any CFMEU permit cases.
Senator Cash told The Australian Financial Review the case would be “an interesting test” of permit requirements.
“With what is known publicly about his past it is hard to see how he is a fit and proper person to hold a right of entry permit,” she said.
Opposition spokeswoman for workplace relations Michaelia Cash says tougher scrutiny is needed for right of entry permits. Rhett Whyman
“With the ABCC’s role of policing the building industry abolished by Labor, there should now be even tougher scrutiny of individuals who apply for right of entry permits.”
Master Builders Australia acting CEO Shaun Schmitke said the ABCC had powers and resources to get involved in cases like this, which the FWO simply did not have.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t seen a single case by the FWO to tackle illegal building union conduct on site since it took over from the ABCC nor have we heard of a visit to a construction site,” he said.
He addedMr Margjini’s right of entry case was “a worrying sign of what we can expect in the future, not only for construction sites but for workplaces generally”.
“How can the government simply stand by and let this happen?” he asked. “We warned the government that the FWO wasn’t equipped to tackle the unique sector-specific problems, but they still refused to act, and now we are seeing the results.”
CFMEU construction head Mr Smith said the CFMEU “won’t take moral cues from the smouldering ruins of the thankfully now-abolished ABCC”.
“The ABCC was a discredited union-bashing squad set up by the Coalition to demonise working people and their representatives,” he added.
FWC deputy president Melanie Binet has been tasked with determining Mr Margjini’s application and held a private conference with parties earlier this month.