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A secret briefing to Premier Jacinta Allan reveals her most senior advisers sought to warn her in writing in June 2023 that the Big Build she was overseeing as minister was being taken over by a lawless CFMEU, that this could cause major cost blowouts, and bikies and criminals had reportedly infiltrated taxpayer-funded projects.<\/p>\n
The emergence of the report marked \u201cstrictly confidential and cabinet in confidence\u201d and addressed to Allan comes as she fights for her political life. It shows Labor\u2019s top infrastructure officials knew far more about Big Build corruption\u2014 and the consequences of her failure to act on it\u2014 than has ever been publicly revealed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s response to CFMEU corruption has been the defining issue as Allan battles to save her leadership, with her main rival, Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, pledging to overturn her refusal to hold a royal commission.<\/p>\n
Carroll has informed Allan he will nominate for the leadership <\/a>in the event of a spill. A cross-factional delegation of MPs and ministers have told Allan she has lost the support of caucus, setting the stage for a no-confidence vote on Tuesday when Labor MPs are due to meet at parliament.<\/p>\n Police Minister Anthony Carbines and Transport Infrastructure Minister Gabrielle Williams, who were among the delegation, argued in favour of a royal commission in Monday\u2019s showdown cabinet meeting.<\/p>\n The leaked report shows the four top public servants who signed off on the June 2023 document sought to warn Allan about the problem a year before it was revealed in the media, immediately becoming one of the most serious scandals in Victorian history.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The document, which is addressed to Allan but does not bear her signature, is dated June 21, 2023, and was signed off by four high-ranking infrastructure and transport public servants.<\/p>\n It also notes that Allan had been apprised of criminal and bikie infiltration of the government\u2019s signature $109 billion infrastructure program.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have been separately briefed on actions proposed to deal with these matters, namely the referral of the matters to Victoria Police,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n An official source confirmed on Monday morning that Allan had been briefed on the report\u2019s contents.<\/p>\n In response to the emergence of the file, Allan said she had no knowledge of it and that claims to the contrary were false. The premier was \u201cnot aware of this brief\u201d and \u201cto say otherwise is a lie\u201d, her spokesperson said on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The premier\u2019s insistence she had never seen the file raises its own questions, including whether there was a breakdown in the government\u2019s internal reporting structure that may have meant Allan was not told of the document\u2019s explosive contents.<\/p>\n The report also pierces Allan\u2019s repeated claim that the CFMEU-enabled corrupting of the Big Build did not risk significant cost blowouts for taxpayers. In contrast, the file warns that the CFMEU\u2019s \u201cconcerning behaviour has the potential to significantly impact project costs and schedule\u201d across the Big Build if it was not addressed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The 2023 report described how a lawless CFMEU was driving an industrial relations environment on the Big Build that was not only \u201chighly challenging\u201d but \u201chaving a bearing on project costs, program, productivity and culture\u201d.<\/p>\n Allan\u2019s officials also describe how they had learnt during internal discussions of \u201cpotential criminal elements (for example outlaw motorcycle club members and convicted criminals) being present\u201d across Big Build worksites.<\/p>\n It was only over a year later, in July 2024, that Victorians learnt that these warnings had not been adequately heeded by the government, when The Age\u2019s Building Bad series revealed how the Big Build was infested with corrupt union officials, bikies and gangland figures.<\/p>\n Editor’s pick The Age has also recently reported how Allan\u2019s office is accused of having helped the CFMEU in 2022 to take over a key Big Build rail site<\/a>, a move that ultimately led to an allegedly crooked labour hire<\/a> company being installed at considerable extra cost to taxpayers.<\/p>\n Over two years, the Building Bad series has also exposed a range of other disturbing revelations, including how almost every bikie gang in the state<\/a> placed their members and associates on Labor\u2019s signature infrastructure projects; how a company ultimately bankrolled by taxpayers and set up to employ women on the Big Build was run by a male drug trafficker<\/a> and a second man with convictions for violence against women; and how the Metro Tunnel consortium has blamed the government for forcing it to agree to CFMEU demands that it claimed cost it $200 million in extra labour hire costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n In recent months, Labor MPs have become increasingly frustrated that voters have been raising government inaction on Big Build corruption.<\/p>\n Despite growing internal momentum for a royal commission, Allan has maintained it would be costly, delay action and not provide cultural change, claims she repeated in an icy cabinet meeting on Monday.<\/p>\n On Monday afternoon, the premier announced the creation of a new $170 million Organised Crime Command.<\/p>\n The funding will go towards upgraded technology for police, including extra surveillance and cybercrime capabilities, and greater resources for the Office of Public Prosecutions to pursue criminal wealth.<\/p>\n Allan said the new laws would make it easier for police to pre-freeze cryptocurrency and allow the Magistrates\u2019 Court to hear certain higher-value asset confiscation matters.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t another policing initiative. It\u2019s a fundamental change in how we fight organised crime, and it starts today,\u201d Allan said.<\/p>\n On Monday this masthead reported that leading crime-fighting experts, including former NSW crime commissioner Phillip Bradley, backed a royal commission<\/a> ahead of the creation of any new policing body.<\/p>\n Former Independent Broad-based Corruption Commission chief Robert Redlich and former ombudsman Deborah Glass have also called for a royal commission<\/a>.<\/p>\n The leaked June 2023 document shows that public servants sought to give Allan a summation of much of the Big Build wrongdoing in a file signed by Victoria\u2019s chief infrastructure public servant, Kevin Devlin, and three of his fellow high-ranking officials.<\/p>\n Ir describes how the Big Build was hosting serious wrongdoing including the \u201cpressuring of construction contractors, including through intimidatory tactics, to agree to \u2026 additional and\/or excess site staffing\u201d.<\/p>\n CFMEU officials also forced contractors on large rail and road projects to hire \u201cparticular persons and companies, in order to avoid industrial disputation\u201d.<\/p>\n Mega-projects were also being stalled because the CFMEU, rather than the state government and its contracting partners, were dictating the \u201crosters and arrangements\u201d for project employees, \u201cleading to program delays\u201d during vital stages of rail and road builds.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The secret document said the CFMEU\u2019s Big Build takeover had led to \u201can increased proliferation of full-time, non-working union delegates and Health and Safety Representatives (HRs), with some recent appointments having limited construction experience\u201d.<\/p>\n The briefing also sought to warn Allan tha the union had weaponised safety issues to increase its power on the Big Build because Victoria\u2019s workplace safety regulator was missing in action, describing the \u201cconcern that industrial issues are erroneously being portrayed as safety issues, with little engagement or assistance provided by WorkSafe\u201d.<\/p>\n As the union ran riot on the projects Allan was overseeing as minister, her advisers said there was \u201can increase in the prevalence of inappropriate requests for higher shift\/leave loading and allowances beyond the relevant EBA\u201d.<\/p>\n Some workers were pocketing large pay packets off the back of CFMEU pressure, they said, as the union was also driving \u201can increase in the prevalence of threats of unprotected industrial action\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The situation was worsened because of the \u201cincreasingly apparent lack of skills and\/or experience in industrial relations management amongst contractors and subcontractors\u201d being paid by Victorians to build Labor\u2019s new roads and rail projects.<\/p>\n If the government failed to act, the officials warned in the document, the situation could worsen.<\/p>\n \u201cIf contractors are unable (for example, through a lack of viable legal avenues), or unwilling (for example, through the impacts of intimidatory tactics), to actively resist unlawful or inappropriate industrial pressure, the resultant lack of control is likely to pave the way for the proliferation of concerning behaviour\u201d, the briefing says.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Victorian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785152172_299_0585778285ab70a146dcd29113631ce4e6d9c4a91fcd411f72ac0a95195fe776.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Nick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2607dc7d0bce6837f07d379a9a5b2856ce871e1e.png\")
Nick McKenzie<\/a> is an Age investigative journalist who has three times been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 20 Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs and criminal justice.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated July 27, 2026 \u2014 6:02pm,first published 4:14pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-826841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}