Victoria royal commission into major public infrastructure construction projects, Digi Mart USA News (Victoria, Australia): Chris Young, KC, lead counsel assisting the Royal Commission into the Integrity of Major Public and Civil Infrastructure Construction Projects in Victoria, spent most of the first substantive day of hearings reading from documents. Participants in Victoria’s Big Build have already handed over 110,000 documents.
Young said the CFMEU had “unprecedented” access to the state government of Jacinta Allan and Daniel Andrews because of their personal and factional links, citing a note prepared by John Holland, one of the nation’s largest construction companies. He said documents revealed union officials sat on water barriers at the Gap Road level crossing removal site, made multiple so-called “health and safety” complaints, filmed workers and threatened to “smash” others who turned up for their shifts.
A phone recording from the contractor’s health and safety manager said police seemed “afraid to take any action.” Young said Gap Road is the first case study of the year-long royal commission because it was where, he argued, the CFMEU took over a site, installed its preferred labour hire and traffic management contractors, and began driving up costs.
Young identified June 7, 2022 as the day the situation changed. He said a dispute that appeared unresolved on June 6 was largely settled the following afternoon after a meeting at the CFMEU head office in Melbourne.
“There are no minutes. There’s no file notes.
There’s no letter recording what was agreed,” he told the commission.
Young said the commission will hear evidence from more than 20 people, each compelled to attend by a notice to attend. The witness list has not been published but is expected to include senior government and bureaucratic officials from the Andrews-Allan era.
At the opening, lawyers announced appearances for the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority, the state of Victoria, building contractors, WorkSafe, Victoria Police and the union administrator. Two lawyers appeared for former premier Daniel Andrews, with a third in reserve, and a lawyer also appeared for Allan’s office.
The article notes that representation of two former premiers at the bar table reflects the political weight of the inquiry, which is examining alleged corruption, crime and wrongdoing costing billions of dollars.
Commissioner Chris Kourakis, SC, has the power to compel documents, and Young said the commission has issued almost 100 calls for information. Some responses, he said, “appear on their face to be untrue,” and others “show a surprising lack of knowledge in matters the submitter should have known about.”
Young warned that some state parties had not complied with notices to produce, which he described as a compulsory process whose non-compliance is a criminal offence. He said delays caused by internal government approval processes were not a reasonable excuse.
“Compliance with these notices is necessary. It is not optional.” The first witness is scheduled to be called on Tuesday.
