Name: Growing calls for a royal commission into CFMEU corruption | 7.30
Uploaded: 2026-02-18T23:01:32.000Z
Duration: 9 min 21 s
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Corruption busting Lawyer Geoffrey Watson's report, titled Rotting from the Top, was tabled in a Queensland commission of inquiry into the CFMEU.

It laid bare the allegations at the centre of nine newspapers and 60 Minutes investigations since 2024.

The Victorian CFMEU is a crime organisation tasked by CFMEU Administrator Mark Irving to investigate violence and corruption within the construction union.

I think clearly it speaks to an absolute broad based system of criminality and corruption.

Watson approached hundreds of witnesses, heard allegations of building sites being converted into drug distribution centres, strippers paid cash to perform in sheds at night, widespread bribery, violence and threats which persist still today.

There were attempts to interfere with your investigation.

You're aware that the administrator has from time to time had threats made to him, Death threats.

The biggest fallout from this report was a section that was redacted by the CFMEU administrator and later released to the inquiry in Queensland.

It estimated $15 billion of taxpayer money had been lost to corruption and inflated costs on Victoria's $100 billion big build public Infrastructure program.

The people who had been doing this work before the CFMEU took over the AWU's control of civil construction in Melbourne, and

I asked them time after time, how much extra did it cost once the CFMEU took these controls?

So let me give you what the takeaway is before you do it could be 30 billion, not 15 billion.

The $15 billion figure, which Geoffrey Watson acknowledges is a rough estimate, was also raised in Senate estimates last week with Fair Work Commission General Manager Murray Furlong.

Do you have any reason to dispute that figure?

In terms of conversations that I've had with officials, I think that figure is consistent with what I've heard from officials from the Victorian government.

CFMEU Administrator Mark Irving Casey, the man the Federal government has appointed to clean up the union, sought the removal of this section because he said Watson's numbers were not well founded or properly tested and the Victorian government is running with it.

Well, there's a lot of florid ramblings from Mr. Watson, but not a lot of evidence.

he's not much good when it comes to coming up with some facts.

Those claims have been dismissed by the independent administrator who has said that they are not well tested or properly founded.

Following the release of the Watson report this week, Jacinta Allen was under pressure about what she knew and when and whether she would investigate the claim.

The CFMEU had cost the Victorian taxpayers 50% billion.

Premier, do you or any of your members of your government, some standing behind you, feel any responsibility to investigate or test the claims made by Geoffrey Watson?

Well, those claims that have been made have been ruled as untested.

Do you have any responsibility to test them?

To make it clear the claim has been made, the administrator, who has the responsibility and authority under federal legislation to perform this investigation, to clean out.

In terms of the authority and the responsibility.

I'm going to support the work of the Federal Administrator because his work is just so critically important to all of the members of government behind you.

And would any of you like to see that investigated?

I just want to say that the Premier has been incredibly strong and decisive in the action that she has taken.

Do you have any desire to investigate or test that $15 billion number that was raised by Geoffrey Watson in Queensland?

Well, as the Premier has already indicated many times this morning, this figure was found by the Administrator of the CFMEU to be untested.

And would you like to test it and not worthy of further consideration.

Would any of you like to investigate this $15 billion number that's been floated?

I think I'm out talking to my community in the Western suburbs all the time and people are talking to me about cost of living.

So the question is about the $15 billion number.

And I talk to them about the steps that the Premier has outlined that we are taking.

Anthony Wheeley is the Chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, the same organisation where Geoffrey Watson is also a director.

This investigation had nothing to do with our organisation.

But Geoffrey's report, I think, is very detailed, it's very competent, it's very courageous.

Jacinta Allen was Transport infrastructure minister between 2013 and 2023 and responsible for overseeing the rollout of the Big Build over the weekend, the Premier's office released a letter she sent to the state's anti Corruption Agency, IBAC in 2024 asking them to investigate allegations of corruption on on Big Build sites.

I took a number of immediate actions and those actions included a referral to IBAC for them to determine their next steps of an investigation.

It also involved a referral to Victoria Police.

On Monday, IBAC released a statement saying the Premier's referral was assessed and determined to be outside of IBAC's jurisdiction.

Senior Union officials, delegates and subcontractors were sharing the stolen funds in one form or another between them all and IBAC has no authority, no jurisdiction to investigate that type of subcontracting arrangement.

IBAC Commissioner Victoria Elliott declined an interview with 7:30.

She told a state government inquiry in December the anti corruption agency needed expanded powers to investig corrupt conduct of third party and private contractors.

Will you expand IBAC's powers to investigate the matters in your referral in 2024?

I have no announcements to make regarding IBAC.

Opposition MP David Davis is currently fighting the Victorian government over the release of two briefs handed to Jacinta Allen, believed to highlight misconduct on Big build sites in June 2023.

These briefs were about corruption and the CFMEU very direct material and was provided to the Minister in her official capacity as Minister for Transport Infrastructure.

The government has refused to make them public because it says the emails contain private information and could endanger a person's safety.

The opposition is now calling for a Royal Commission.

The powers to compel evidence, the powers to put people on the stand and the powers to do that in a comprehensive way.

This issue won't and shouldn't go away without accountability, that it impacts on every Victorian, to varying degrees, the rest of the country and that I said that Victorians have a right to know.

I do not think the Victorian government will have the courage, or less, may I say, the audacity to create a Royal Commission because they know fully that it would end up being a commission into their own role, into this very sad and tragic situation that's developed over the last decade.