Last week, the Royal Commission into the Integrity of Major Public and Civil Infrastructure Construction Projects in Victoria held its first public hearing before Commissioner the Hon. Christopher Kourakis AC.This is a moment ART has worked towards for years. We called for a Royal Commission, a Special Prosecutor and stronger powers for IBAC. The Royal Commission has now commenced, it will work alongside a Special Prosecutor, and IBAC reform is under way.
The ART supported by former Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass OBE and planners and consultants representing community groups, argued that the terms of reference should be wide enough to focus on the absence of any proper planning process when initial decisions to commence major capital works have been made. Up until yesterday’s opening hearing, the contention has been that the term of reference on executive government’s governance responsibility for major projects is wide enough to enable the Commission to expose the absence of adequate consultation, cost benefit analysis and an integrated plan involving land usage, transport and infrastructure, as required by existing legislation, when announcing decisions to undertake major capital works has led to the environment in which corruption and unrestrained cost has flourished. It appears from the general observations made in the opening session, that this will be something the Commission will examine.
The Commissioner opened not with building sites but with how projects are chosen, observing that if projects “are properly selected, well designed, and their delivery properly managed, the value they return to the taxpayers can far exceed the tax dollars expended on them.” He declared that “governments must select and design infrastructure projects around the socio-economic needs of the Victorian public, and not party political interests,” and invited submissions on “the regulatory and governance principles which are calculated to deliver value to the people of Victoria.”Counsel Assisting made clear the Commission will examine whose interests were put first. “The relationships between the responsible ministers and the unions will also have to be examined,” said Chris Young KC, along with what government, its agencies and the major contractors knew “and when did they know it? What did they do about it?” Chris Carr SC added that some in executive government were said to be “prepared to suffer criminal conduct and outrageous cost overruns if that was the price of having a project complete on time.”
The Commissioner was clear that accountability will run “from those who carry the highest level of responsibility down and without exception.”Ministerial oversight will be tested directly. The Commissioner said delivery agencies must raise problems with the responsible minister “at the earliest possible opportunity” and that “there should be no firewall between the responsible minister and the agency.” Counsel Assisting tendered two 2023 briefings to the then Minister warning of intimidation, excess staffing demands and criminal figures on project sites. One was unsigned. The Commission will examine whether anyone “sought to avoid knowledge, to have plausible deniability.”
“The citizens of Victoria will pay $150 billion for the big build. They have a right to know whether their money has been well spent.” (Counsel Assisting Chris Carr)
This win also belongs to the workers and others who spoke up, and the journalists who refused to let these stories go. Counsel Assisting acknowledged that the Commission is “in part a consequence of their courage in speaking up, and a consequence of the tenacity of the media in reporting on their stories and on their allegations.” ART commends the exemplary investigative reporting of journalists at The Age, and of in particular Nick McKenzie and the State Politics Reporting Team, whose persistent work brought these matters into public view when governance and oversight protections had not.
The first document tendered to the Commission, a cabinet-in-confidence briefing to the then Minister, reached Victorians through the media and not through government disclosure. It shows why public interest journalism must be protected.
The Commissioner called recommending lasting reform the Commission’s “most important assignment” and strongly encouraged considered submissions. Two blocks of public hearings will be held before the end of the year.
The Hon Robert Redlich AM KC
Chair, The Accountability Round Table