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A top corruption-busting lawyer has told Premier Jacinta Allan she is deliberately misrepresenting his words in her parliamentary and media statements falsely claiming he had abandoned his estimate that Labor-enabled misconduct led to multibillion-dollar cost blowouts.
Correspondence released to this masthead shows Geoffrey Watson, SC, personally wrote to Allan on Tuesday accusing her of verballing him in claiming he had walked away from his February estimate that CFMEU wrongdoing may have added a 15 per cent premium to the government’s signature $100 billion Big Build program.
Allan has on multiple occasions claimed that after Watson made the incendiary 15 per cent claim as part of the landmark inquiry he performed for the CFMEU administration, he had backtracked on it and said he had been misquoted.
In an email to the premier on Tuesday, Watson said Allan’s assertion was false and that she and her government were misrepresenting him, insisting he stood by his inquiry findings.
On Wednesday, Allan responded by telling Watson her claim that he had said he had been “misquoted” was sourced from comments Watson had made during an interview with Melbourne radio station 3AW.
In an emailed response, she pointed to his interview with 3AW’s Jacqui Felgate in which he expressed frustration with unnamed people erroneously quoting him as saying all of the $15 billion had ended up with criminals.
In that interview, he said: “This is one of the things that they keep misquoting. I’m not saying that this has all gone into the hands of a few corrupt individuals. A lot of it went into the hands of decent, hardworking people.”
But, as Watson subsequently pointed out in his reply to Allan, he claims the meaning of his words in the radio interview had been used misleadingly by the premier.
Watson wrote back to the premier on Wednesday, saying that her portrayal of his words relying on that interview was unacceptable and again urged her to hold a royal commission.
“As far as I am concerned, you are deliberately misleading people when you use the ‘misquoted’ label as though it applies to the $15 billion,” he told the premier. “I urge you to put the issue to a proper test – call a special commission of inquiry as soon as possible.”
Watson’s inquiry found that gangland-linked figures or those who were involved in bribery or corruption had obtained labour hire and other contracts on the Big Build by paying kickbacks – contracts they should never have won.
However, after securing taxpayer contracts via corrupt means, these gangland-linked figures supplied workers who were not exclusively criminal associates but whose ranks included regular, honest staff employed by rotten bosses.
With the help of corrupt CFMEU figures, some corrupt labour hire or other company bosses also inflated their rates on projects, which had the effect of enriching their honest workers but still represented an avoidable cost blowout caused by corruption.
Watson made the original Big Build blowout estimate in his landmark report, Rotting from the Top, in which he said he had settled on the “very rough” estimate of 15 per cent, describing it as “not unreasonable” and “probably conservative”.
“From there, the maths is simple – the leadership of the CFMEU has cost the Victorian taxpayer something like $15 billion,” Watson said. “There is another point to this – as will be seen, much of that $15 billion has been poured directly into the hands of criminals and organised crime gangs.”
In recent weeks, Allan has repeatedly suggested Watson did not stand by the $15 billion figure by saying he had been misquoted.
Asked about the figure in parliament last month, she told the house: “The person who made that figure, Geoffrey Watson, now says he was misquoted in making that figure.”
A day earlier, she told parliament: “When it comes to Geoffrey Watson’s claim, he himself has said he was misquoted.”
Many other Labor ministers have used the same line at media conferences and in parliament.
Watson told this masthead he was disappointed but not surprised by the premier’s response to his complaint.
“They still have failed to speak to me about the report [into the CFMEU],” he said. “They could have asked me these questions. I stand by what I said. This is a very rough estimate of this corruption to the state of Victoria.
“Through a process of corruption, there are businesses that are put into the Big Build that shouldn’t be there.”
A state government spokesperson denied Watson’s comments had been misrepresented.
“He clearly said it,” the spokesperson said.
Several key planks of Allan’s response to the corruption scandal enveloping her leadership have been challenged in recent days.
“This is a desperate premier that has knowingly misrepresented an expert to talk down corruption and has been called out for doing so,” Wilson said.
“This November, a vote for my Liberals and Nationals team is a vote for a royal commission into the largest corruption scandal in Victoria’s history.”
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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