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Victoria’s labour hire cop has given Big Build’s most controversial gangland-linked firm, Women In Construction, a seven-day deadline to shut down its operations and remove its workforce from the state and federally funded North East Link project.
Last month, The Age revealed that the supplier of hundreds of female workers to government projects had been run by two men with criminal convictions one for breaching a family violence order and the other for drug trafficking offences.
The Age also revealed the firm had deep links to the underworld and that the state Labor government was warned in writing in 2023 that the CFMEU was forcing Big Build contractors to use Women In Construction even though its rates were up to 20 per cent higher than its competitors.
Overnight, Labour Hire Commissioner Steve Dargavel ripped up Women in Construction’s licence and ordered the firm to remove itself from all Big Build and other sites where it supplies labour within seven days.
Many of the company’s workers will likely move to another Big Build labour hire provider. In a statement released on Wednesday, the Labour Hire Authority said it had refused to renew Women in Construction’s licence as it was not satisfied it was being run by fit and proper persons.
“We formed the view that decision-makers within this business, including director Luke Ellery, were not fit and proper to run a labour hire company,” Dargavel said in a statement.
“We refused this licence based on factors including Ellery’s business compliance history, and his character – including his honesty, integrity and professionalism.
“This character test is one of the new and powerful tools we have available after Victoria’s strengthened labour hire laws came into effect this month.”
While Dargavel’s decision to ban the firm from operating will be highlighted by the Allan government as evidence that its Big Build clean-up is working, serious questions remain about why the company was ever allowed to operate on the government’s signature $100 billion infrastructure program and how much taxpayer money it has turned over.
Last month, The Age revealed that Women In Construction had for years secured substantial taxpayer-funded contracts representing itself as a women-led supplier of female workers on Labor’s signature infrastructure scheme.
This was despite the company being owned by a male serial domestic abuser and previously managed by a male drug trafficker also recently convicted of family violence.
This masthead’s investigation also revealed the firm has deep links to bikies and violent criminals, who repeatedly used Women In Construction to place their friends, associates and relatives in lucrative Big Build roles.
Premier Jacinta Allan told a parliamentary inquiry last month that the allegations about Women In Construction were “disgusting” and “deeply, deeply concerning”.
Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Jeremi Moule also said he was unaware of any briefings to his department from Big Build agencies, police, or industry regulators about Women In Construction or related companies.
But this masthead has been briefed on, and separately sighted, concerns raised in writing by contractors to the Major Transport Infrastructure Agency (MTIA) in 2023.
The complaints to the MTIA describe how the CFMEU had successfully demanded that Big Build contractors sack a labour-hire company that was not aligned with the union and instead employ Women In Construction, even though it cost 20 per cent more than its competitors.
For years, Women In Construction has supplied scores of female workers on the state and federally funded $26 billion North East Link road tunnel mega-project that will connect Melbourne’s outer ring road to the Eastern Freeway.
At its height, Women in Construction supplied up to 250 workers across multiple Big Build rail and road projects, generating an estimated $2.5 million a week.
The state opposition and corruption expert Geoffrey Watson, SC, previously attacked the Allan government for not moving more quickly to safeguard the Big Build from firms such as Women In Construction.
Sources, speaking anonymously to discuss confidential information, also said that Victoria Police and the CFMEU administration had separately received information months ago about criminal identities linked to Women In Construction.
The administration was told the firm had been routinely influenced by bikie gang members to employ or sack female workers on the Big Build.
Opposition Leader Jess Wilson last month said the Women In Construction revelations were “absolutely sickening” and said they would be investigated by a royal commission into Big Build corruption if the Coalition won November’s state election.
Under questioning at the parliamentary inquiry, Allan was unable to say when she became aware of the Women In Construction company or how much it had been paid.
“We are doing everything we can to protect women, to protect girls, to protect all workers on construction sites, because I have zero tolerance for this behaviour. It’s disgraceful, it’s disgusting. There is no place for it,” Allan said at the time.
Women In Construction has, since 2019, profited from a Labor government policy that encourages the hiring of women on the Big Build program, to secure lucrative jobs for relatives, friends and associates of gangland figures.
The founder and owner of the company, Luke Ellery, was convicted in 2019 on two counts of persistently breaching a family violence order and pleaded guilty without a criminal conviction to using a carriage service to harass a woman.
A convicted drug trafficker, Wayne Carter, who has also been convicted of family violence-related charges, previously worked as the company’s general manager.
The Age reported last month that Women in Construction had planned to challenge its licence cancellation. The company was contacted for comment on Wednesday morning.
Earlier this month, Dargavel separately cancelled the licence of a labour hire company linked to criminals and drug traffickers and which had secured Victorian government funding and a major contract on Australia’s biggest federal government-backed wind farm.
That licence cancellation came after Dargavel’s investigations team uncovered the firm, 24-7 Personnel, was being secretly managed by a violent murderer.
The company is the fifth major labour hire firm targeted by the regulator after this masthead reported they had profited from major government infrastructure projects.
The authority has also cancelled licences of dozens of smaller labour hire players, although they are mostly not among about a dozen major operators that carved up the Big Build program, including eight firms with deep links to underworld figures or corrupt CFMEU officials and which have been exposed in media reporting and targeted by the regulator or police.
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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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