9 — THE YEAR THEY TURNED Something happened inside the union movement last year that almost nobody outside it noticed. When the Commonwealth put the CFMEU into administration in August 2024, the Building Industry Group of Unions, of which the CEPU is a member, went public with what they called "outrage" at the administration legislation. That letter still sits on the plumbers union's own website. Watch what the money did next. In the same financial year, the CEPU's Electrical Division paid the Australian Greens $600,000. The largest payment any union has ever made to the Greens. Double the previous record. The figure is confirmed on two independent AEC return types, the Greens' party return and the CEPU's donor return, matching to the dollar. Now the plumbing side. On the CEPU Plumbing Division Victorian Branch's own audited accounts for the year to 31 March 2025, the year spanning the same administration, political-party donations were $219,080, up from $2,000 the year before. A hundred-fold jump in the run-up to the federal election. The line has to stay honest. CEPU-family money still reached Labor that year, the CEPU Electrical Division's own donor return records total donations made of $1,563,800, and after the Greens $600,000 the residual $963,800 shows on the AEC recipient side as Labor payments and other minor lines. A separate $500,000 donation from the plumbers union direct to federal Labor. Annual returns don't carry payment dates. I can't tell you whether the Labor money moved before or after the movement's public opposition to the administration, and neither can anyone reading the public record. That's a gap in the disclosure system itself. Steelman. The record does not support any characterisation of the $600,000 as tied to the CFMEU administration by cause and effect. Timing within the year cannot be pinned from AEC data. Election-year donation jumps are ordinary. Do not read past the record. Which is this. The unions that were never banned, never administered, never touched, in the same year they publicly opposed the administration, their electrical division bankrolled the Greens at a level never seen before, and their plumbing branch's political donations went from four figures to six. When a union family can shift record payments in the year it publicly opposes a government it once funded, every party takes note. What's your thoughts…? Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺 Sources: Australian Greens Political Party Return 2024-25, AEC Transparency Register — CEPU Electrical Division $600,000. CEPU EES Donor Return 2024-25 — total donations made $1,563,800 (residual after Greens: $963,800). AEC Detailed Receipts 2024-25 — PPTEU $500,000 direct to federal Labor. Plumbing and Pipe Trades Employees Union website (cepuplumbing.org.au) — Building Industry Group of Unions statement on administration legislation. CEPU Plumbing Division Victorian Branch Financial Report FR2025/12, filed with Fair Work Commission, s.255 expenditure report — political-party donations $219,080 (FY24: $2,000).