Only a Royal Commission can fully investigate serious or systemic wrongdoing, make findings and far-reaching
recommendations concerning the decade or more of what the state Government itself acknowledges to be a
“rotten culture” in the Big Build.
A Royal Commission into corruption is the only inquiry with the power to compel evidence and examine the
serious or systemic corruption the Government itself has conceded.
Billions of dollars in state and Commonwealth money went into the Big Build, yet the State Government has
ruled out the one inquiry that can establish how much was lost and why the oversight meant to protect it failed.
In Victoria’s history, this is an unprecedented scandal. It has now been aggravated by the executive
government’s self-interested refusal to hold a Royal Commission, with the claim that these problems can be
addressed by police investigations and a request to participants in the Big Build to report such conduct.
As has recently been reported, it is recognised by some within the party that a Royal Commission would provide
the greatest “existential threat” to the governing party being returned at the next election.
The history of the Big Build, culminating in the Government’s unwillingness to hold a Royal Commission, reflects
the harsh reality that the interests of the party have been given priority over the public interest.
A Royal Commission, holding public hearings, with the means to break insider silence, the power to compel
evidence, and the time to make findings of fact and report on them – can deliver the change in the law that stops
this happening again.
The Accountability Round Table urges the Government to establish a Royal Commission with terms of
reference which will enable it to investigate the following:
– whether the CFMEU was granted a privileged role in the Big Build that became a stranglehold over all
commercial arrangements;
-whether contractors and subcontractors paid the CFMEU or other parties for the right to participate in
major Big Build projects and,
– whether they were recompensed from public funds; whether any parties became complicit in any fraud
on the revenue; whether the CFMEU members, criminal organisations and others were given artificial
roles in the Big Build or were paid for work not genuinely performed or misrepresented that they had
provided legitimate commercial services;
– whether contractors and subcontractors refused to cooperate with any State or Federal police
investigation;
– whether labour-hire and infrastructure agencies and their officers facilitated or turned a blind eye to any
corrupt arrangements at the Big Build;
– the extent to which the costs of the Big Build does not reflect the fair value of the work performed;
– whether there was a failure at Ministerial and other levels of Government to adequately oversight any
corrupt conduct in the Big Build;
– whether the Government mismanaged its relationship with its affiliated union with whom it had a conflict
of interest;
– whether adequate scrutiny was given to the appropriateness of payments made to contracting parties;
– whether there was any and what wastage of public money;
and the extent to which there continues to be corruption within the Big Build.
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