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Former premier Jacinta Allan could be called to give evidence to the commission at some stage. Allan was minister for transport when the CFMEU tok over the Gap Road project.
The project was completed by an alliance that included infrastructure construction companies CPB and John Holland. Insiders told this masthead earlier this year that Allan’s office placed implied pressure on the consortium to work with the CFMEU.
“We definitely got a call saying: ‘Can you work with the union or not? The minister wants to know’,” one source involved in the project reportedly said.
The consortium insisted that requests to meet with the union be put in writing, after which a meeting with union leader Joe Myles took place and a deal was made.
The deal included the use of B K Labour, a hire firm favoured by the CFMEU whose owners were later charged with financial crimes but avoided conviction , and were instead fined $3000 in court for creating a false document.
Allan has steadfastly denied she or her office intervened in the project to support the CFMEU.
What happened at Gap Road, and why has the commission focused its first public hearings on this project?
Workers on the level crossing removal project were initially covered by an enterprise agreement negotiated by the Australian Workers Union.
But following a two-day work stoppage on June 6 and 7, 2022, rival union the CFMEU wrenched control of the project from the AWU.
The rail consortium building the project then acceded to CFMEU demands that it employ the union’s favoured labour hire firm and its health and safety representatives on site.
Good morning. Welcome to our live coverage of the first day of hearings for the Royal Commission into the Integrity of Major Public and Civil Infrastructure Construction Projects in Victoria.
For the next two weeks, Commissioner Christopher Kourakis AC and his team will grill a string of witnesses as they seek to uncover the extent of alleged corrupt conduct that infiltrated the Victorian Labor government’s Big Build, how much the state knew and what it did about it.
The hearings come at a pivotal time in Victorian politics. Premier Ben Carroll called the commission in August, days after rolling his predecessor Jacinta Allan as leader.
Today he leads a caretaker government that is trailing the Coalition and just two points ahead of One Nation in recently published opinion polls. The election is less than three weeks away.
