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The construction company building a James Packer-backed luxury Toorak apartment project has paid more than half a million dollars to gangland figure Mick Gatto to allegedly buy CFMEU support, with payments made as recently as last September.
The involvement of Packer’s private development vehicle, NPACT, in financing the $400 million One Toorak Place development is under scrutiny amid a fresh leak of financial records showing the project’s builder, Cobild, has made more than a dozen payments to Gatto.
The records show Cobild, a Melbourne-based high-end construction firm, made regular $39,600 payments to Gatto throughout 2025, a period in which it was in discussions to secure the contract to build One Toorak Place.
The payments from Cobild to Gatto began in late 2022 but also occurred in the months after the CFMEU was plunged into administration in July 2024 over its ties to Gatto and other gangland figures.
Cobild’s Gatto payments, along with those made by multiple other construction firms to the veteran gangland identity, are almost certain to be scrutinised under the looming royal commission promised by both Labor and the Coalition.
Depending on Labor’s yet-to-be-released terms of reference for the royal commission, financiers and developers such as NPACT and developer Orchard Piper – who are the joint-venture partners behind the One Toorak Place project – may also be scrutinised over their due diligence when hiring Cobild to construct the mixed-use project.
Likewise, large contractors on Labor’s signature $109 billion Big Build program who engaged other firms with Gatto on their payrolls, or who were working with subcontractors known to employ bikie gang leaders or other underworld identities, are set to be probed.
In response to questions from this masthead, Cobild said in a statement: “Our business operations are strictly confidential and as such, we cannot comment on any matters relating to our clients and business relationships.”
But firms have typically hired Gatto to secure a commercial advantage, including – as described by Geoffrey Watson, SC, in his Rotting from the Top report tabled in the Queensland inquiry into the union – cessation of CFMEU industrial pressure on projects that can lead to major cost blow-outs.
The Victoria Police’s Taskforce Hawk is currently investigating whether the CFMEU applied pressure to firms that was only lifted after the intervention of so-called union fixers such as Gatto. That, too, will almost certainly be a focus of the pending royal commission.
Packer previously endured searing supply-chain scrutiny over dealings between his former casino company, Crown, and gambling-promotion businesses linked to the Chinese underworld. NPACT did not respond to questions sent to one of its executives on Thursday.
This masthead is not suggesting Packer had knowledge of the payments, nor direct control over Cobild’s conduct.
The records revealing Cobild’s Gatto relationship, which The Age has sighted after a leak from inside Gatto’s network, show Cobild made its first payment to Gatto in late 2022.
After that, it paid him on 13 other occasions, with the payments ending in October 2025. All up, Cobild paid Gatto more than $500,000.
In February, Cobild was formally announced as the official construction partner for One Toorak Place, with early site works having commenced in late 2025 and the project slated for completion in 2028.
Backing the development is NPACT, which was led by former Crown Resorts executive director Todd Nisbet until his unexpected death last October and is owned by Packer.
The project is marketed as Toorak’s first “hotel-style residential address” with a 25-metre swimming pool, wellbeing precinct, concierge and chauffeur services and a restaurant area headed by famous chef Chris Lucas.
Cobild has emerged as one of Victoria’s leading luxury builders, having previously partnered with Orchard Piper on the $125 million Toorak Village project and headed other major projects in Victoria valued at between $70 million and $120 million, as well as a luxury building venture in Byron Bay.
Cobild is owned by the Rotenberg family and managed by father-and-son team Coby and Rotem, who are not accused of any wrongdoing.
Before Gatto’s intervention, the CFMEU publicly targeted Cobild with untested accusations its work sites hosted unsafe practices.
The Carroll government is yet to release the terms of reference of its promised royal commission or announced who will head it, although various names have been floated as potential inquiry chiefs, including former federal court judge and Crown Resorts royal commissioner Ray Finkelstein and ex-NSW Police deputy commissioner Nick Kaldis, who was a royal commissioner on the federal inquiry into veterans’ suicide.
While Cobild is likely to be scrutinised in the upcoming commission as one of Gatto’s commercial construction sector clients, the Big Build firms who have also paid Gatto to allegedly secure CFMEU support on government infrastructure projects are also set to be scrutinised.
New details have also been uncovered about one of these firms, Elite Roads.
The company has denied all wrongdoing and recently threatened to sue state Liberal politician Anthony Marsh for accusing the firm of wrongdoing in social media posts.
But sources have confirmed Elite Roads not only made repeated payments to Gatto, including as recently as February, but did so after Gatto promised to “sort things out” with the CFMEU in 2024.
Elite Roads was an Australian Workers’ Union-aligned firm, but after Gatto was placed on the firm’s payroll in early 2024, the company was granted a meeting with senior CFMEU officials to discuss obtaining the powerful union’s backing.
At the time the CFMEU was wielding huge influence over Big Build sites.
One confidential source said Elite Roads made an initial cash payment to Gatto of $30,000, followed by regular $6000 payments to a Gatto-controlled bank account.
In July, Marsh used parliamentary privilege to air accusations against Elite Roads, accusing its owner Deon Coote of “illegally and carelessly dumping industrial waste” and of making “payments to the underworld crime figure Mick Gatto while receiving work on Victoria’s Big Build”.
“Despite this, Mr Coote and his dodgy company are working on Victorian road projects, including the delayed and mismanaged Peninsula Link,” Marsh told parliament.
“The Big Build has created a culture where contracts can be acquired and disputes settled with bullying, bribes and blackmail.”
In a letter to Marsh that threatened legal action, Coote’s lawyer said, “Elite Roads and its founder Mr Coote pride themselves on the quality of work they have been able to deliver to Victorians.”
It added that the firm and its owner “have an outstanding reputation in Victoria for integrity and quality”.
Gatto has previously denied all wrongdoing, but declined to comment on his dealings with Elite Roads or Cobild.
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Nick McKenzie is an Age investigative journalist who has three times been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 20 Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs and criminal justice.Connect via email.From our partners
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