FEDERAL Court judges aren’t prone to hyperbole.

In fact, their judicial discipline means that they choose their words very carefully. So, when a word like “appalling” is used by a judge, it carries a level of gravity that should demand our urgent attention.

A few weeks ago, Federal Court judge Richard White fined the CFMMEU $74,000 for the actions of its former organiser in breaching workplace laws and entering the Flinders Medical Centre site twice with an expired permit in December 2016.

Justice White said the union had an “appalling” record of contraventions of industrial legislation, citing more than 140 occasions since 2000. His Honour also referred to dishonesty, misrepresentation and lies in relation to the organiser’s behaviour.

The question that His Honour and his colleagues must be asking themselves is how long can this kind of appalling behaviour by the CFMMEU be tolerated without more effective sanctions? That’s certainly what the business community continues to ask.

When the independent umpire, the Federal Court, clearly shares the same level of exasperation that’s been felt by industry for years now, why is nothing more being done? Fines have proven to be no deterrent to a union that seems to be quite comfortable in thumbing its nose at the law.

It is utter hypocrisy for unions like the CFMMEU to demand that employers be held up to the highest levels of scrutiny for their actions when the CFMMEU bosses and officials clearly flout the law.

His Honour’s use of the adjectives “appalling” and “deplorable” also come to mind in response to innocent children being used in a shameless and foul-languaged tirade to personally attack someone for doing their job.

When CFMMEU Victorian secretary John Setka posted a photo of his children on Twitter alongside an expletive to publicly abuse the head of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, Stephen McBurney, it represented a new low.

Setka’s post was denounced by the Prime Minister as “one of the ugliest things I’ve seen”, confirming he would consider deregistering the union.

The CFMMEU argues it is securing better wages and conditions for its workers. Yet, as a direct result of breaching workplace laws, the CFMMEU and its predecessor organisation has incurred millions of dollars in fines and legal costs.

Too much of that enormous cost falls on the shoulders of ordinary construction industry workers who must wonder who’s really winning out of all of this?

Perhaps the answer lies in figures published in the media in March this year, from which we calculate that the combined entity of the CFMEU and MUA would have about $143 million in turnover and $299 million in assets.

We think it is time to question the true purpose of any union that has an appalling record of contempt for the rule of law and which has been the subject of a litany of alleged abuses in the workplace.

It’s the 21st century. Australian building sites and workplaces cannot afford the industrial relations dark ages of this irresponsible, arrogant and economically destructive brand of unionism.

Nigel McBride is chief executive of Business SA.