Bill Shorten is a faction man par excellence. Few politicians have more shrewdly navigated, divided and corralled the various sub-factions of the Labor Party and the trade union movement to their advantage. But the Labor leader’s decision to sit down with sub-faction bosses, the disgruntled and the ambitious, and consider torpedoing the so-called “stability pact” that has kept the peace inside Victorian Labor is bewildering. Shorten, despite being Labor leader for four years, has not given up the factional game playing or eschewed the powerbroker ethos that he used to rise to national prominence, become a minister, play kingmaker and then seize the leadership. I can’t think of another Labor leader who has got involved in the weeds of factional deal-making at a state level like this before. Is there nobody Shorten can trust to do this dirty work? He should be at arms-length. But Shorten has a blind spot when it comes to the militant Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union. This rogue union is a serial law-breaker. Dozens of its officials have been charged and it has paid out millions in fines. It has been admonished by judges in courtrooms all over Australia. The CFMEU should be avoided like the plague. Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd urged Shorten to cut ties with the CFMEU but these calls fell on deaf ears. That the CFMEU is still affiliated to Labor, with a direct say in policy and personnel, is a disgracehorten is close to the CFMEU leadership. Their votes were critical in the debate over refugee policy at Labor’s national conference in July 2015. And Shorten would not have been leader without the votes of breakaway left faction MPs in the caucus ballot for leader in October 2013.