Wednesday, 31 July 2024

Bills

Government Construction Projects Integrity Bill 2024

Statement of compatibility

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (10:01): I lay on the table a statement of compatibility with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006:

In accordance with section 28 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (the Charter), I make this statement of compatibility with respect to the Government Construction Projects Integrity Bill 2024 (the Bill).

In my opinion, the Bill, as introduced to the Legislative Council, is compatible with the human rights contained within the Charter. I base my opinion on the reasons outlined in this statement.

This Bill seeks to impose obligations on parties to certain construction contracts entered into by or on behalf of the Crown, and on registered employee organisations, to ensure that certain persons are not employed or engaged for the purposes of the contracts. Specifically, it aims to:

1. Require parties to major construction contracts to ensure that any person employed or engaged for the purposes of the contract does not have a criminal history related to organised crime, has no pending criminal charges of this nature, and is not a member or associate of a declared criminal organisation, and

2. Enable parties to such contracts to request relevant information from the Chief Commissioner of Police regarding the criminal history and associations of prospective employees or contractors.

3. Amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) to impose similar obligations on registered organisations when applying for entry permits for individuals.

To the extent that these provisions engage human rights, such as the right to privacy, freedom of association, and the presumption of innocence, these rights may be subject to reasonable limitations under section 7 of the Charter. The limitations are aimed at protecting public safety, maintaining the integrity of government construction projects, and preventing organised crime from infiltrating these projects.

The Bill contains specific safeguards to ensure that any interference with human rights is proportionate and justified. For example, the ability to request criminal history information is limited to parties involved in major construction contracts and is subject to strict procedural requirements. Additionally, the Bill ensures that any person whose rights may be affected by these provisions is provided with procedural fairness.

Based on the foregoing, it is my view that the Bill is compatible with the Charter, as any limitations on human rights are reasonable, necessary, and proportionate to achieve the Bill’s objectives.

Evan Mulholland MP

Member for Northern Metropolitan Region

Second reading

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (10:01): I move:

That the bill be now read a second time.

I rise to speak on the Government Construction Projects Integrity Bill 2024.

This bill provides an urgently required remedy to the corruption, the waste, the criminality that the Allan Labor government has permitted to run rampant on taxpayer-funded worksites.

Every Victorian loses.

Victorians lose through higher taxes.

Victorians lose through corrupt deals.

Victorians lose through state debt that will cripple our children’s and our children’s children’s futures.

We all know this.

After all, the Allan Labor government turned a blind eye to CFMEU criminals on taxpayer-funded worksites – that they did.

This Labor government has unfairly preferenced their CFMEU mates on major projects, squandering $40 billion of taxpayers money on cost blowouts and waste.

We saw that when the Premier herself, then infrastructure minister and Commonwealth Games minister, literally wrote into contracts that you must use the CFMEU or you would not get the tender for the athlete’s village – extraordinary. I believe that is the first time that has been done in history. Usually they get people into a room and say, ‘You must go with the CFMEU,’ after they have got the contract, ‘otherwise you won’t be getting any supplies delivered to your site or getting any labour.’ They literally wrote it into the contract. It is no wonder the Commonwealth Games were cancelled – because you were doing these kinds of shenanigans. It is an absolute con.

CFMEU delegates have allegedly bullied labour hire firms and subcontractors off worksites, unless they joined their corrupt union.

Repeated, detailed accounts of CFMEU activities have been ignored, including allegations that organised crime figures and outlaw motorcycle gang members are operating as CFMEU delegates and standing over members of rival unions or hardworking construction workers who do not want to join them.

I heard the new CFMEU secretary in Victoria say, ‘Everyone deserves a second chance.’ I am a big believer in a second chance – I dedicated my maiden speech to that – and I have a big interest in criminal justice policy reform. But a second chance does not apply to organised crime gang members who hold current positions in bikie gangs who use government cars to operate criminal activities. I am old enough to remember when that side dragged the former member for Frankston Geoff Shaw over the coals for using his car, but this government does not seem to have anything to say on criminal bikie gang members using government cars to run criminal operations which left them stabbed or shot and driving to hospital in that particular car. Nothing to see here.

This isn’t just negligence; it’s complicity in union thuggery and corruption.

Let me share some specific examples to highlight the gravity of the situation.

This is not just coming into the chamber and moving a bill; this is very, very serious. The government needs to do something about it.

In 2019, it was revealed that senior CFMEU official – and the Premier’s friend – John Setka had connections with members of the Hells Angels and Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gangs. These associations were not incidental but indicative of deeper, systemic issues within the union.

In 2021 it came to light that Mick Gatto, a known figure in Melbourne’s underworld, was allegedly involved in mediating disputes between the CFMEU and construction companies. His presence and influence within the union’s dealings were a clear sign of the criminal infiltration into our construction sector. 2021 – did this government have anything to say on that? Did this government have any inquisitive thought about why this might be a problem? No, absolutely silent. Who happens to be their biggest donor, who has donated millions of dollars since then? The CFMEU. So of course they are not going to speak up, because they are complicit in this. They have known about it and did absolutely nothing.

More recently, in 2023, police investigations uncovered that several CFMEU shop stewards were receiving kickbacks from organised crime groups in exchange for allowing them to operate on construction sites. These stewards were facilitating drug trafficking and other illegal activities, using their union positions to shield these criminal enterprises from scrutiny. So you knew about it then; you did nothing.

I recall asking the Premier, who was then Minister for Transport Infrastructure, in 2023. I stood up in this place and I asked her in a question about what she was doing about illegal coercion that had come to light on the Mickleham Road project in Greenvale, where good Indigenous firms took in, through procurement, Indigenous people with genuine connection to Indigenous communities in the area. They were kicked off the Mickleham Road site in favour of an Indigenous-only firm that had connections to Mick Gatto. It had no connection to the local Indigenous community, but this is what happened. I asked the Premier about it. She came back to me and said that industrial relations were a matter for the Commonwealth government.

But then we saw the Premier, after the 60 Minutes story, come out. She stood next to the Attorney-General at a press conference and said she was disgusted. All of a sudden she can do something about it. What do you know! She can do something about it if Nick McKenzie is sitting there and asking her questions, saying, ‘What? What? What? What? Yes, we’re dealing with this. We’re tough on this thuggish behaviour, I tell you. We’re tough on this thuggish behaviour.’ What bollocks. I asked her about it last year. She passed it on to the federal government.

There have been several matters where she literally passed it on to the ABCC after she would have known it had been defunded at that time. That is how weak this Premier is. They are rotten to the core in terms of their complicity in this thuggish behaviour. The Premier can stand at a press conference and say it is thuggish behaviour and that she is doing something about it. She has referred it off to Greg Wilson. Nothing against Greg Wilson, but the terms of reference do not actually do anything. They do not. It will be the Coate inquiry mark 2. What I found very interesting in responses to questions is that the Premier now says that if she is asked by Mr Wilson she will of course appear before his inquiry. Will there be public inquiries? No. Will there be public hearings? No. But she did not apply that same level of openness to the Commonwealth Games inquiry. I wonder why. She set the terms of reference up in a way that it is not able to look into corrupt dealings in the CFMEU. It is not able to look at the countless amount of warnings that were given to the government over the CFMEU. It is only really to do with what changes can be required in the future.

The Premier did know about it several times. And of course they had a fundraising lunch before the election with the Treasurer and the now Deputy Premier, boasting about the billions of dollars of infrastructure they could take advantage of and they are taking advantage of. There are examples of ghost shifting. We saw it on 60 Minutes: ‘No, no, no. Put in your invoice for four workers. We’ll have two on there. You take one, we’ll take the other.’ This is taxpayer money. You wonder why we have $40 billion in blowouts. You wonder why the North East Link all of a sudden blew out by $10 billion and the Albanese government had to bail them out with $3.75 billion in the latest budget to plug their black hole. That side of the chamber do not care. They do not care about $40 billion worth of blowouts and wonder why it is happening. You have got legitimate corruption happening on our construction sites involving criminal motorcycle gangs. It has got to stop.

We are putting an offer on the table as a part of this bill to outlaw criminal elements from taxpayer-funded projects. They are not Labor-funded projects, they are funded by the taxpayer. The CFMEU is clipping people off the top, putting bikies on construction sites to stand over labourers and saying, ‘You must join the CFMEU to be on this site. You also must join Cbus to be on this site.’ And then we see – shock, horror – the CFMEU officials using Cbus’s influence in a corrupt way to have influence over sites and who could join the union. Ridiculous! It is corrupt, corrupt conduct, absolutely corrupt conduct.

The scale of corruption and influence doesn’t stop there. These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. I know they are very unhappy about it.

The CFMEU’s connection with organised crime has had profound implications for the integrity of our construction industry and the safety of our workers.

Safety violations may have been overlooked in exchange for bribes.

This endangers the lives of countless workers who rely on the most stringent safety measures to protect them in one of the most hazardous industries.

The financial impact on our state is staggering.

In the Allan Labor government’s Victoria, cost blowouts and delays are the norm.

Take, for example, the West Gate Tunnel, initially budgeted at $6.7 billion, which has now ballooned to over $10 billion. The North East Link went from $10 billion to $17 billion and now to $26.1 billion. This is the same government, by the way, that believes the budget range of between $31 billion and $34 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop East will not go over budget. It is immune to cost blowouts, even when there is a 20 per cent inflationary effect in the economy due to their mismanagement of the Big Build. But that is going to be quarantined – no, it will not. It absolutely will not.

Labor’s profligate financial mismanagement means fewer resources for essential services such as health care – and we are seeing that at the moment in our regional hospitals – education and public safety.

This bill, introduced by the opposition, is a direct response to the Labor government’s complete failure to curb the criminal influence of the CFMEU and its associates on taxpayer-funded worksites.

The Government Construction Projects Integrity Bill 2024 has two main purposes.

First, it requires that parties to major construction contracts with the Crown ensure that no person with a criminal history, links to the criminal organisations listed in the schedule to the bill or links to declared criminal organisations is employed or engaged for these projects.

Second, it mandates that registered employee organisations do not issue entry permits under section 83 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 to individuals associated with these criminal elements.

Under this bill, any Victorian government run and taxpayer-funded project – including not only the physical construction work but also the design, tendering, project delivery, and contract administration – is in scope.

Let me be clear: this bill is about integrity, transparency, and ensuring that our public construction projects are free from the taint of organised crime.

Key provisions of this bill include:

1. Criminal history checks: all parties to a major construction contract must ensure that employees or contractors have no convictions or pending charges related to organised crime. This includes offences under the Criminal Organisations Control Act 2012 and similar laws from other jurisdictions.

2. Exclusion of criminal elements: individuals who are members, former members, or associates of declared criminal organisations are prohibited from participating in these projects. This provision targets the very heart of the CFMEU’s influence, cutting off their ability to infiltrate and exploit public construction projects.

3. Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police: the bill empowers parties to request criminal history information from the Chief Commissioner of Police to ensure compliance. The chief commissioner is required to provide this information promptly and keep detailed records of all requests and responses.

4. Amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004: registered employee organisations must ensure that individuals applying for entry permits have no links to organised crime. This ensures that workplace safety representatives are above reproach and not influenced by criminal interests.

This bill is not just about cleaning up Labor’s mismanagement and enabling of organised crime on our government worksites.

This bill is about protecting the integrity of our public institutions and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are not spent wastefully by the Allan Labor government.

The Allan Labor government has shown time and again that it is unwilling or unable to address the pervasive corruption within the CFMEU.

This bill is our solution to a festering sore on Victoria’s governance.

We have heard countless stories of intimidation, extortion, and violence linked to the CFMEU. These are not the actions of a responsible union but are the actions of a criminal enterprise. This is what has happened to the CFMEU. There are good people within the CFMEU. I know many members of the CFMEU. They have no truck with this stuff. They hate the fact that bikie figures appear on their worksites. There is camaraderie between union delegates and union members, but they have no truck with this stuff. They have no truck with ghost shifts or standover tactics or bullying of other members who might not be a member of the union. They have no truck with politics, yet we see time and time again the CFMEU’s influence not only on Victorian construction projects and residential construction projects but on the Labor Party as well. We see members describing him as a good friend. We see when there are reprehensible comments to do with domestic violence that there are members of the Labor Party cheering Mr Setka on, cheering him on to get through it. There are other members calling him a very good friend, Mr Johnny Setka, inviting him to their maiden speech. This is how close the Labor Party is to Mr Setka.

Victorians deserve better. They deserve a government that will stand up to corruption and organised crime, not one that turns a blind eye – or worse, enables it.

The Government Construction Projects Integrity Bill 2024 is a necessary step to restore faith in our public construction projects and to ensure that they are free from the influence of organised crime.

I urge all members of this house to support this bill and send a clear message that corruption and criminal behaviour have no place in Victoria’s construction industry.

Let us not forget the broader implications of this bill.

We are also addressing a major source of illicit income for these criminal groups.

Money generated from corrupt activities in construction is allegedly funnelled into other illegal enterprises such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and even human trafficking.

We were speaking yesterday about unexplained wealth, and there are a lot of people that have had a lot of unexplained wealth, whether it be clipping off some workers from a government construction site so a union boss can have their home renovated on the taxpayer dime. That is not what unionism is about. I have been a member of a union before. I have many friends that have been members of unions, and they do not believe that this is what it is about. It is not about the union bosses clipping the ticket on the taxpayer dime – it is not. It does the union movement a great disservice.

You have had many whistleblowers. And there would be more, but many in the industry believe, as probably will be the case under this government, that this is all going to go away, this news story. This is all going to go away, and in six months, if they have spoken out, they will be up against the wall and they will lose their entire business. That is what they want. That is what they want by not supporting this bill. They want it to go away as well. They want it to go under the radar.

I tell you, we will not be letting this go. We will be prosecuting this every day, because we need to clean up the corrupt nature of our construction projects. We need to make sure we are not having even more blowouts on construction sites. We will not be letting this go until we dig up every last connection to this corrupt union, until we enable every single whistleblower to come forward, until we get rid of criminal elements on Victorian construction sites – the kickbacks, the coercion, the standover tactics on government construction sites.

We will not stop until Indigenous firms can actually get a go on Victorian construction projects rather than being pushed off in favour of mates of Mick Gatto. It is not good enough.

Through this bill we are cutting off this revenue stream, cleaning up our construction sites and dealing a significant blow to organised crime operations across the state.

This bill is not merely legislation; it is a commitment to restoring honesty, transparency, and accountability in our construction industry. It is a declaration that we will not tolerate the exploitation of our public resources by criminal elements.

It is a promise to the people of Victoria that their hard-earned taxpayer dollars will be used responsibly and for the greater good.

All members of this place should be united in their resolve to fight corruption and organised crime.

I commend this bill to the house.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (10:22): I move:

That debate on this bill be adjourned for two weeks.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned for two weeks.