The Big Build agency gave the royal commission a notebook with every page blacked out, and texts about the premier’s office came two days ago

The state agency running Victoria’s Big Build was told off in public on Thursday by the royal commission investigating corruption on the very projects it delivers.

Opening the day’s hearing in Melbourne, counsel assisting Chris Young KC said the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority had only disclosed a set of text messages “just two days ago”, despite an earlier requirement to produce them. He said some other documents the commission asked for still had not arrived, and accused the authority of engaging only “when compelled to do so”.

What is in the texts?

The messages date from 2022 and concern work stoppages and the CFMEU on the Sunbury level crossing removal at Gap Road, the project at the centre of this week’s hearings. They involve Matt Toner, then an adviser to premier Daniel Andrews, and Matthew Phelan, chief of staff to Big Build chief Corey Hannett, and they refer to the “PPO”, the premier’s private office.

Mr Young said the commission was “not tendering those text messages now, but we will”. The commission has said it will seek to have Mr Toner and Mr Phelan give evidence. Neither has been accused of wrongdoing by the commission.

What was blacked out?

The handwritten notebook of Evan Tattersall, a former head of Rail Projects Victoria, was supplied before the hearings with every page redacted. A much less redacted version reached the commission only this week, after it pressed for it.

Commissioner Chris Kourakis, the former South Australian chief justice, said the late material had disrupted the commission’s line of inquiry. He urged “in the strongest terms, early, genuine and comprehensive disclosure”, and summed up the rule for agencies unsure what to hand over: “if in doubt send it out”.

Richard Knowles KC, for the authority, apologised and said it would respond as soon as possible.

Why does this matter now?

Premier Ben Carroll committed to a royal commission within hours of replacing Jacinta Allan in July, after his predecessor refused to call one, and said that nothing was off limits. An agency inside his own government is now the one being told it is slow to cooperate.

The timing is sharp. Victoria goes to the polls on 28 November, and the commission has said it will keep sitting through the campaign. The opposition has called it a cover-up commission; Thursday’s hearing gives the government a public test of its promise of full cooperation.

What else did the hearing hear?

John Holland’s industrial relations manager Trent Smith told the commission that by mid-2021 the company believed it could only survive in Victoria’s civil construction market with a CFMEU enterprise agreement, which it signed in August 2021. “That’s how we understood the relationship to be,” he said.

Senior engineer Wayne Donnelly said a June 2022 stoppage at the Sunbury site threatened a cost blowout. The commission has said that by April 2022, 95 per cent of Victoria’s civil contractors had a CFMEU agreement.

How big is this inquiry?

The commission has a $50 million budget and must report by 20 August 2027. Its terms cover corruption, criminal conduct and serious misconduct on major public projects, how government and regulators responded, and how to recover public money. An adviser to the CFMEU’s administrators has estimated that up to $15 billion of taxpayer money was lost to the union’s dominance of the sector, a figure that has not been tested by the commission.

VNN will update this story as more is confirmed.