A builder’s memo said the CFMEU had “unprecedented access to ministers”: Big Build royal commission hears the Gap Road files, 19 days before Victoria votes

By late Monday morning, the first day of public hearings had moved from background to the builder’s own files. Counsel assisting tabled internal John Holland memos from 2017, 2021 and 3 June 2022 describing the CFMEU’s growing control of Victorian rail sites and its access to the Andrews government. The memos are exhibits, not findings of the commission.

What do the John Holland memos say?

The 2017 memo said the union had “unprecedented access to ministers” and other key government stakeholders, noted that the premier was aligned with the Socialist Left faction, and recorded that the union was proud none of its site visits complied with the building code. It said John Holland was careful in its dealings with the union as a result.

A 2021 memo recorded the CFMEU telling the company that all its projects “are considered targets”, and discussed the union’s rise and the AWU’s decline on Victorian sites.

The 3 June 2022 memo, written days before work stopped at Gap Road, described an escalating CFMEU campaign and set out two options: keep resisting and risk disruption, or let the union take control and face fewer stoppages. Four days later, after a meeting at the union’s offices, the site was handed over.

The commission also heard that union officials visited Gap Road 34 times in a year, with visits rising sharply in April and May 2022, and all but one were by CFMEU officials. WorkSafe inspectors visited regularly but issued no breach notices.

Who paid?

The alliance deal shared savings and overruns: if the job came in under its $110 million target, the builders kept 35% of the saving; if it ran over, they repaid half the overrun up to a cap and the state paid the rest. “Practically speaking, every dollar spent at Gap Road was paid first by the state,” counsel assisting Chris Young KC said.

Former premier Jacinta Allan, who was transport and infrastructure minister when the union took over the site, has denied that she or her office intervened to support the CFMEU. The state is paying for lawyers for Ms Allan and former premier Daniel Andrews. Premier Ben Carroll, asked about the risk to his re-election, said he wanted Victorians to get “the answers they deserve”.

How did the hearings begin?

The Royal Commission into the Integrity of Major Public and Civil Infrastructure Construction Projects in Victoria began its first block of public evidence hearings in Collingwood on Monday 9 November, from 10am AEDT (7am AWST), with Commissioner Chris Kourakis, a former Chief Justice of South Australia, presiding.

Its first case study is not a headline megaproject but a single rail site in Melbourne’s north-west: the Gap Road level crossing removal in Sunbury, part of the Sunbury Line Upgrade.

Counsel assisting Chris Young KC told the commission that work at Gap Road stopped on 6 and 7 June 2022, during a critical line shutdown. After a meeting at the CFMEU’s offices on 7 June, work resumed, with control of the site transferred to the union. The commission will examine what happened, what arrangements were made, what they cost and what the government knew.

What did counsel assisting say the commission has found so far?

Mr Young said more than 110,000 documents had been requested, hundreds of notices sent and witnesses already questioned in private hearings.

He outlined the allegations the commission will test, noting that some are denied: that CFMEU-placed health and safety representatives, many of them unelected, were put on sites through labour hire companies, and that contractors often resorted to “buying peace”. Later hearings will examine organised crime on sites, how government funding was allocated and how public projects were decided.

He also warned that threatening or punishing a witness is a serious offence and that any such conduct would be referred to Victoria Police.

Where does Jacinta Allan come in?

Mr Young tabled a briefing given on 21 June 2023 to Ms Allan, who was then the minister for transport and infrastructure. It raised concerns about intimidatory pressure on contractors and threats of unprotected industrial action on public job sites.

The commission said notices to appear and give evidence will be issued to each person named on that briefing “in due course”. The timing of Ms Allan’s evidence has not been set. Former premier Daniel Andrews could also be called; Premier Ben Carroll has said it is for the commissioner to decide who is relevant.

Why is this happening now?

The commission exists because of a change of leader. Ms Allan refused for months to call a royal commission despite pressure from across politics after allegations, first reported in 2024, that bikies and criminals working as union delegates had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars on government-funded projects. Her refusal contributed to her removal as premier, and Mr Carroll established the inquiry as his first act in the job in August.

The 2024 allegations led the federal government to put parts of the CFMEU into administration that August. A report commissioned by the administrator from barrister Geoffrey Watson SC estimated that alleged corrupt conduct may have cost Victorian taxpayers as much as $15 billion.

What is at stake?

The Big Build is a program of about $150 billion in road and rail projects. If even a fraction of the Watson estimate is borne out, the cost lands on every Victorian household that pays for those projects through state debt and taxes.

The politics are just as sharp. Victoria votes on 28 November, and the first block of hearings ends on 20 November, so evidence about decisions made under the current Labor government will be aired in the last weeks of the campaign. Labor has had no poll lift from changing leaders, and Mr Carroll is now running for re-election while an inquiry he set up examines his own government’s record.

What can the commission do?

The commission has a budget of $50 million and is due to deliver its final report in August 2027. Its terms of reference cover the extent of corruption and serious misconduct, how companies, government, regulators and police responded, why earlier measures failed, how to prevent it happening again, and how lost public money could be recovered.

VNN will update this story as more is confirmed.