The Accountability Round Table (ART) welcomes the willingness of the Victorian Government to give in principle
support to the December 2025 carefully considered recommendations of the Parliamentary Integrity and Oversight
Committee (IOC) that IBAC should be given the power to follow the money and should have power to investigate
serious corruption even if it does not constitute a criminal offence.
But in-principle support is not law. There will be further delay in the implementation of these laws as the
Government intends to refer these recommendations to an Expert Reference Group that is not due to report until
May 2027, after the state election following which legislation may be introduced.
These delays are inexcusable given the Premier’s recognition that a corrupt ”culture” exists in the CFMEU within
Victoria’s “Big Build”. Such a culture cannot yet have been eradicated and public funds continue to be misused.
Every month of delay is a month in which public money cannot be followed, and conduct that Victorians can plainly
see is wrong cannot be investigated. IBAC must have the power wherever it leads and no matter who is
implicated.
There is a pressing need for immediate action to restrict the continuance of this public scandal. ART calls on the
Premier to legislate these powers in the current Parliament.
This is not the Government’s first opportunity to act. A bill to give IBAC “follow the money” powers was before the
Victorian Parliament as recently as March this year and was resisted by the Government.
In February, in the wake of the CFMEU scandal, ART called publicly for IBAC to be given the power to follow the
money wherever it leads and no matter who is implicated. The Government has now adopted that very language
as its own.
Robert Redlich AM KC, a Director of the Accountability Round Table and a former Commissioner of IBAC, said:
“I welcome the Government’s commitment and the Government’s indication that the utilisation of the power to
investigate should have retrospective effect – that in its own words – “nothing is off limits”, but there is no justifiable
public interest reason to wait. The Government does not need a reference group reporting in 2027 to legislate
powers that its Committee recommended, Powers which the NSW ICAC has and which the Government at last
says it is prepared to support. It can introduce this legislation in the current Parliament”.
ART again calls on the Government to establish a Royal Commission which is able to investigate the largest public
scandal in Victoria’s history. Only such a commission can identify the practices which have enabled this culture to
flourish. Only a Royal Commission can explore the breadth of the matter and recommend the means of ensuring
that such conduct cannot occur again.
