The first blow came so fast, from such an unexpected angle, that Andrew Ferguson didn't know quite what had hit him after stepping into the witness box last Thursday morning. Suddenly, everyone was watching a wedding video of people dancing to Love Shack by the B-52s. There was Ferguson, shuffling about on the dance floor. Even Ferguson allowed a wan smile.

Minutes earlier, the barrister Tony Bannon, SC, had pointed Ferguson, a former NSW secretary of the construction union, the CFMEU (and younger brother of two federal Labor MPs), to an affidavit he had sworn about his relationship with a former CFMEU official, Craig Bates: ''On page four you say this: 'Craig Bates and I had a work friendship. It was not a close personal friendship that extended into our social lives and involved our respective families.'

''Do you regard that as a fair and non-misleading description of your relationship with Mr Bates?''

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''Yes, I do,'' Ferguson replied.

Almost immediately, the court was listening to Love Shack and watching the wedding video. Ferguson could be seen at the reception, and kissing the bride.

Bannon: ''You attended the wedding of Mr Bates and his wife in October 1994 at Gymea Trades Hall, didn't you?''

Ferguson: ''I've got no recollection of attending ...''

Bannon: ''When you swore to His Honour that 'Bates kept his family at a distance' you were lying, weren't you?''

Ferguson: ''Definitely not.''

Later, Bannon asked: ''And you went to the bucks' night for the wedding, didn't you?''

Ferguson: ''I've got no recollection of the wedding, nor the bucks' night, and I could say I never attended any bucks' nights with Craig Bates.''

Bannon: ''Extraordinary loss of recollection, Mr Ferguson, the failure to remember going to the wedding of somebody you worked with for so many years?''

Ferguson: ''I have just recollected he did have a bucks' night down at Miranda at a friend's house and I do recollect just now attending his bucks' night.''

Bannon: ''Is that because I put a question to you which showed how absurd and ridiculous your evidence was, you thought you would give a little bit of ground?''

Ferguson: ''Most definitely not.''

The spectre of Craig Bates hung over Ferguson in this trial, Ballard v Multiplex, because he had given a sworn statement that Ferguson told him, ''We've got to do something about this Ballard bloke. We've got to get rid of him.''

That alleged remark goes to the core of this case, and this case goes to the core of a perception that there is corruption and collusion in the building industry which is very difficult to prove. The ''Ballard bloke'' referred to David Ballard, better known as Charkey Ramon during his successful boxing career.

He is suing Multiplex and the CFMEU for allegedly colluding to drive him out of business for not having a unionised workforce.

One morning in 1996 Ballard came to work and discovered he was locked out of a building site on the Pitt Street Mall, with his equipment locked inside. He would never get that equipment back. His business never recovered.

Ballard claimed this was orchestrated by Ferguson, with Multiplex colluding as the price of keeping industrial peace. It has taken so long for this case to come to court because it took years before a critical mass of witnesses would come forward to support Ballard's version of events. One of those witnesses is Craig Bates.

In the Supreme Court on Thursday and Friday, Ferguson, trying to maintain a roadblock defence, spent much of his testimony conceding nothing, not even the obvious. It made him appear dogmatic, dissembling, disingenuous.

He will resume giving evidence tomorrow and thus far has been the grey man in court: grey suit, white shirt, grey tie, grey hair, grey answers. Passionless, punctilious, pedantic. His preferred answer, repeated numerous times, is: ''That is 100 per cent not correct.''

After another video was shown to the court, this time a segment from

A Current Affair, which clearly showed a union official, John Henderson, threatening Ballard with industrial action, Ferguson claimed Henderson had been merely talking about safety issues on the site.

But this same union hardman, Henderson, has provided a sworn statement which says, in part: ''Ferguson told me ... 'I need you to focus on Stoneglow and Ballard. He embarrassed the union. I don't want Ballard on the job. I want him gone.' ''

Armed with this, Ballard's barrister asked Ferguson: ''What you did say was 'We have got to get rid of Ballard out of the industry'?''

Ferguson: ''That's not correct. That's a fabrication.''

If this is a fabrication, then it is part of a highly elaborate fabrication. Four former employees of Multiplex and the CFMEU have all claimed, independently, that the union wanted Ballard's company off the site, out of work from Multiplex, and that these demands came from Ferguson.

Bannon: ''You knew that he [Henderson] had engaged in conduct of a type that Mr Ballard alleged on the [television] program, didn't you?''

Ferguson: ''I don't accept that. I regarded him [Henderson] as rude, abrasive, racist and sexist and I often counselled him for that.''

Bannon: ''He was your favourite hardman to send in on difficult jobs, wasn't he?''

Ferguson: ''Definitely not.''

What has happened since the removal of the Labor government is akin to the peeling of an onion as layer after layer of institutionalised comfort for the union movement is removed in the context of a new and very different government.

On Friday, after Bannon resumed his pounding, he asked Ferguson, once again, to concede the obvious. Ferguson, once again, would not comply.

Bannon: ''Under your stewardship, the CFMEU had caused many building sites to be shut down at least for periods of time?''

Ferguson: ''I don't have a recollection of a site being closed down by the union.''