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In 2024, investigative reporter Nick McKenzie exposed alleged criminal infiltration and criminality within the country’s most powerful union, the CFMEU. This reporting prompted a slew of investigations among governments and law enforcement agencies around the country.
The conclusions of an investigation commissioned by the CFMEU’s own administrator reveal the extent of that corruption, and its findings are damning – including that the CFMEU’s conduct could have cost taxpayers $15 billion. And as Nick McKenzie tells host Julia Carr-Catzel on The Morning Edition podcast, not a “single public servant and not a single politician has been meaningfully held to account”.
McKenzie cites the report’s findings that major government projects like Victoria’s Big Build were infiltrated by corrupt union officials in bed with gangland figures and bikie gangs.
“That’s what was happening on the Big Build, we had subcontractors, sometimes run by bikie gangs, certainly linked to bikie gangs, linked to other gangland figures, charging well over the odds, getting work they should never have got at a vast scale,” McKenzie says on the podcast.
“I mean, there’s bikie gangland figures driving Ferraris around Victoria at the moment, care of the taxpayer, thanks to that negligence, that failure to keep contractors under control on these major, major sites.”
Click the player below to listen to the full episode, or read on for an edited extract of the conversation.
Carr-Catzel: And what would you say about the way the Big Build project has been run that makes it so vulnerable to corruption?
McKenzie: Well, you can imagine, if you’re running your own house renovation, you’d be wanting to know what your subcontractors, the person doing your tiling and doing your carpentry were charging. You’d be pretty keen to know if they were overcharging you, and if they rocked up on a Harley-Davidson in bikie colours, you’d be especially concerned.
Now, lets times that by many multiples. That’s what was happening on the Big Build, we had subcontractors, sometimes run by bikie gangs, certainly linked to bikie gangs, linked to other gangland figures, charging well over the odds, getting work they should never have got at a vast scale. I mean, there’s bikie gangland figures driving Ferraris around Victoria, at the moment care of the taxpayer thanks to that negligence, that failure to keep contractors under control on these major, major sites.
So why was this happening? I mean, we still really haven’t got to the bottom of why the Labor government didn’t protect public funds. We know they didn’t. But why? Was it because they wanted an ally in the CFMEU? Was it because they wanted the projects done on time? I mean, at the end of the day, the projects weren’t done on time, the budgets were blown out, and relations with the CFMEU were poor.
Geoffrey Watson, SC, the corruption expert, in his expert testimony said his view was that the government was seeking some sort of accord with the union that it was ultimately scared of. The union’s industrial might was so great, the government didn’t know how to deal with it and thought by passing the problem on to major government contractors on these sites, the problem was simply go away. You’ll disappear. And of course, it has not.
Carr-Catzel: And so you’ve given us a snapshot of the corruption taking place. But a big question in all of this, and what you alluded to before, is just how much the Labor government knew and when, because Watson’s report does suggest that ministers knew much more than they’re letting on. Is that right?
McKenzie: It absolutely suggests that, I mean, Watson concludes that not only did the state government of Victoria have a duty to know how the money was being spent and misused on these government sites, but that it did know it was being misspent and abused.
The bureaucrats running these projects, or overseeing these projects, knew about this corruption and this impropriety, and the government itself knew and chose to do nothing about it.
That stands to absolute reason. I mean, there are many government officials that have been involved in these mega-projects. We know that there are reports of serious corruption, unlawful or improper behaviour on many of these sites, on many occasions. So in some respects, it’s a matter of sheer logic backed up by hard evidence that the government knew.
What’s very disturbing in Victoria is having established that the government did know, well, where’s the accountability in a Westminster system? If a minister presides over a series of corrupt projects, responsibility should flow to that minister. Well, who was the minister most responsible for the big build? It’s the premier, Victoria Jacinta Allen. There’s been an absolute absence of accountability down the government chain of command. Not a single public servant and not a single politician has been meaningfully held to account. And ultimately, there’s growing calls for an independent inquiry to really lay out who knew what, when in government, and if they did, if politicians, if public servants, did, as Geoffrey Watson has concluded, indeed, know a vast amount of this corruption was going on, then what’s the appropriate penalty?
Hear the story behind the headlines on The Morning Edition podcast, every weekday from 5am on Apple, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform.
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