Key facts
- Counsel assisting Chris Young KC said 20 witnesses have been compelled to appear during the November hearings.
- Young warned some parties had not complied with orders to produce documents, including by citing government policy.
- John Holland wrote in 2021 that the CFMEU "enjoy a significant level of influence within the state government".
- Young said four CFMEU officials who later forced work to stop at Gap Road had also interfered in the Metro Tunnel project.
- Documents showed traffic controller hourly rates rose from about $45 to $88 after the disruption.
- A September briefing estimated the rate changes could cost the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority $60 million to $78 million for current projects.
A royal commission into allegations of corruption on Victorian Big Build projects heard on November 9, 2026, that a major construction company feared putting the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union offside because of its close links to the Daniel Andrews Labor government. Counsel assisting the commission, Chris Young KC, presented the evidence as the first block of hearings opened into the integrity of major public and civil infrastructure construction projects in Victoria.
The hearings will examine the union's involvement in a level crossing removal project at Gap Road in Sunbury, north of Melbourne, in 2022. The project involved removing a level crossing and building a new rail bridge and underpass. Young said 20 witnesses have been compelled to appear during the November hearings, and warned that some parties had not complied with orders to produce documents, including by citing "government policy" to delay production. "It is extremely concerning that some parties have not complied with the terms of those notices to produce," Young said.
The November hearings will focus on what government officials did during a June 2022 meeting to appease the union, which had forced work to stop on the Gap Road project. Young showed evidence that in the years before the union interfered, the construction sector was increasingly aware of the prospect of industrial action curtailing work and of the CFMEU's growing influence. In 2017, John Holland, one of the companies involved in the Gap Road project, noted that the CFMEU was "proud of the fact that none of their site visits are code compliant". An email also noted the "significance of the CFMEU relationship with the Andrews government in Victoria, and the impact this is having, and will have in the future, in respect of client relationships with the Victorian government". John Holland officials suspected the CFMEU would have a "substantial amount of knowledge around proposed government tenders and input" in the tender process. "We are thus particularly mindful of the optics in our interactions with union stakeholders," the 2017 email said.
Four years later, the company noted that "the CFMEU are emboldened by their success on major infrastructure projects", and later in 2021 that they "enjoy a significant level of influence within the state government". "It is a level of influence not seen in previous years and is unlikely to diminish."
Young said four of the CFMEU officials who would later force work to stop at Gap Road had similarly interfered in the Metro Tunnel project. He said the officials entered the Gap Road project's eastern portal 29 times in January 2020 and were involved in activity considered unlawful, but nonetheless received attention from the government, which asked if the safety issues they raised were valid. Young said a "very high risk rating" was applied to the possibility of industrial action on Gap Road, and that the risk escalated in May 2022 as CFMEU officials appeared on site more regularly.
By early June, Neil Thompson, the health and safety manager for the Rail Network Alliance involved in the project, was calling police, seeking help to remove union officials who were stopping work, including by sitting on barriers and refusing to move. Internal notes tendered showed references to CFMEU officials warning workers "you guys better not turn up tonight otherwise we will smash you during the day" and that "their life would be make very difficult for them personally" if they continued working on the project. A recording of a phone call between Thompson and WorkSafe and a subsequent email showed that on June 6, the day before a meeting central to the hearings, he was unclear about how to get work to continue. "We actually called Victoria police to escort themself off site. Victoria police said there was nothing they could do," Thompson said in the call. "We're going around in circles a bit because last week WorkSafe said there was nothing they could do."
The following day, Young said, there was a 13-minute meeting, followed by a subsequent meeting at the CFMEU, which resolved the issues. Two CFMEU officials, Joe Myles and Paul Tzimas, attended the meeting, along with four officials from the project. Young said that while the commission had obtained significant documentation on the events leading up to the meeting, little was known about what occurred during it, so the commission would rely on witnesses' memory of conversations four years ago. Key questions included what stopped the work and whether the disruptions were used as leverage by the CFMEU. It remained unclear how much the disruption cost or what was paid to end it, Young said.
The union interrupted work on the site for 36 hours, and traffic controllers employed after the disruption charged more than those previously employed, documents in evidence showed. The hourly rate increased from about $45 to $88, or from $59 to $147 for penalty rates. One 10-and-a-half hour shift cost $609 under the previous firm but $1,225 for the same shift under the new firm, Young said. The Major Transport Infrastructure Authority director general began considering the cost implications of a CFMEU campaign to increase traffic controller rates around the time of the disruptions. A September briefing prepared for the then-minister for transport infrastructure, Jacinta Allan, estimated the changes could cost the authority $60 million to $78 million for current projects and well in excess of $400 million for projects in planning.
Earlier on November 9, Premier Ben Carroll said the royal commission was one "that Victoria needed and Victorians deserve". "I want every Victorian to get the answers they deserve," Carroll said. He confirmed legal representation for two former premiers, Jacinta Allan and Daniel Andrews, was "supported by the state" as has been the case at "other previous royal commissions". Opposition leader Jess Wilson said: "They've trashed the future of this state, and now Ben Carroll is allowing the taxpayer to foot the bill for them to be defended in the royal commission, it doesn't pass the pub test." The hearing continues.