Nick McKenzie on CFMEU corruption and Labor’s blind eye

Having been in the trenches investigating this corruption scandal for two years, I mean my capacity for shop is probably somewhat less than the average person.

Nick mackenzie has been digging into allegations of corruption in the CFMEU Construction Union since twenty twenty four. It's a powerful union meant to protect workers. Instead it's been accused of running a racket with Biki gangs and criminals ripping billions of dollars out of government funded projects. Now a report has laid bare the scale of it all.

We've looked at a Biki gang infiltrating a government job over here, We've looked at Italian organized crime infiltrating a government project over there. But to see it all in one place, it was a tremendous dumping of shocking allegation, shocking conclusions, all leading in one direction. Which is why the hell was this allowed to go on at such scale and why has no one in a political class been held to account.

The report's author, Barrister Jeffrey Watson, not only tore the cfm E you to shreds, but also claimed the Victorian government knew about the problems and did nothing about it.

So if somebody had stomped on it earlier, the problem would have been fixed earlier. Now who had that responsibility? Bearing in mind these were government projects, Bearing in mind these were taxpayers dollars being spent.

But that section of Watson's report, the question the Victorian labor government, was deleted before the report was published.

You wouldn't believe this by looking up people. But I am a very bad tempered, petulant person, and I can erupt at a moment's notice, and I was really actually quite angry.

So is this a cover up?

I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM today nine Newspapers investigative reporter Nick McKenzie on contracts, kickbacks and building site strippers. How did the rod take route in the construction industry. It's Tuesday, February seventeen.

Nick.

It's about two years ago since you first broke the story of what you called an unholy alliance between gangland figures and the CFMU. You know, bikeys, gangsters infiltrating unions and given powerful positions, often on those government funded projects. Now we've found out that there's even more going on.

What do we know, Well, it's it's like a bad, sort of crazy Hollywood script. The latest set of allegations in terms of the depth of criminal infiltration, of the involvement of bikis, of bribery, of corruption, and drug trafficking on government sites, women allegedly being forced to perform sex

So all of this came out of the Queensland Inquiry into CFMU corruption where Jeffrey Watson testified. Can you tell us a bit more about what he said?

Well, Jeffy Watson sc is a very well known corruption buster. He's best known previously for his work with the Ikak in New South Wales, bringing down both labor and liberal politicians and political figures, and what's his job is really what is the scale, what is the scope of the corruption of the c if me, what's happened, what's gone wrong? He testified to reveal for the first time the findings of this big eighteen month inquiry into what went wrong in Victoria.

How bad did things get in Victoria?

Oh my god, it's out of control.

So that happened last week and it was absolutely stunning because what Watson found is breathtaking. I've never read a corruption report quite so jaw dropping as Watson's report gone. As all this sort of polite language, it's just a catalog of shocking biky corruption, union corruption, corporate corruption.

A man who had killed somebody was released from jail and almost immediately appointed a health and safety representative of the Victorian branch of the CFU.

He was extremely force, right on the stand, laying out who the baddies are, calling out gangland figures such as Mick gadovery infamous gangland figure, and really, I think, pointedly and importantly describing how parts of his report had been changed to remove a politically sensored material or something that he said he was very angry about. And that's content that reflected poorly, mostly in the Victoria Labor government.

Who took them out?

And why that they were removed by the sea from the administrative marker of in case now, he's a senior barrister. He was appointed by the Albanese government when our allegations first hit the press back in twenty twenty four. Irving's job is to take over the union, to get rid of the old ruling part of the union, to sack a bunch of officials for poor performance, for corruption, etc.

And he's done that.

But in this case, and keeping in mind is a Labor Party appointee, he stripped these two critical parts of the report that were most damaging to labor. Irving says he removed those parts of the report because he felt they were ill founded. There wasn't a basis for which, a proper basis for which Jeffrey Watchin should estimate that fifteen billion dollars of taxpayer money was wasted or ended up in the pockets of biky Games.

Sure, it's speculative. It's speculative to say the sun will come up tomorrow. When you read the simple points which I had made in the original version of the report, I would have thought the primary criticism of it would have been that it was a statement of the bleeding obvious.

The head of the Fair Work Commission, Murray Furlong, as a public servant, has backed that figure most recently.

That figure is.

Is consistent with what I've heard from officials from the Victorian government.

And this is where it's really serious, I think, not just for Irving, but for labor federally in state. What we're seeing is that this scandal has gone so far. We know that corrupt union officials have been operating it. I've been turfed out, we know Gangland figures are deeply involved, they've been exposed, But not a single public servant and not a single politician has been meaningfully held to account for their role overseeing projects where all this bad behavior

So Nick, would you go as far to say that this is a cover up? And is there any doubt in your mind that the Victorian government new organized crime had infiltrated government projects and then didn't act.

Well, there's two choices, isn't there The government was either so incompetent it didn't know biking bosses were working on its projects, or it knew and turn a blind eye. They're the two choices. I think about this. If your listeners are building a house and one day one of the subcontractors building and doing the tiling is replaced by a biker who rocks up and charges w amount, I mean you'd likely be making some pretty serious inquiries about

So how could the not know about that? Edit duties know about that taxpayer money.

It's responsible for making sure organized crime doesn't take hold. There is a huge amount of evidence that shows the government, to some extent at least did know this was going on. We know there's documents internally which raise allegations of blackmail, extortion, and.

Now it's saying it didn't know.

The Premier of Victoria just interallled and saying I didn't know until it hit the media. I mean that is quite clearly, blogoney. So certainly we deserve to know how much the government knew. We deserve to know the extent of that government in competence and failure to act on organized crime. And while we don't know, there's a cover up in place, and that cover up remains in place as I speak here.

Right now, coming up, how far has the rot spread outside Victoria? So, Nick, what has the Victorian government said about the allegation so far?

Have they said anything? Whenever we reveal.

More of this corruption and crime we hear the same thing or terrible. We don't like corruption and crime, says the Victorian premier in the government. It's appalling. It should be referred to the authorities. And they said that again last week in response to this latest eruption.

When allegations were raised with me, they were referred to the relevant authority for their investigation. I have said that on previous occasions. Then when the media reports around the widespread nature of this rotten culture became public in the middle of twenty twenty four, we acted immediately.

It just handles this shit samage to the Victorian police and to other authorities and says, well, you make of it what you will. That's never going to get to the bottom of this. I mean, the Victorian Police do a fine job, but like every state police force around this country, they're utterly stretched. And it's not the job of the Victorian police to ask the question order to answer it. What did politicians know about corruption? Did they enable it by failing to act on it? What do

And let's not forget this.

The minister responsible for many of these projects while they were hosting this corruption and crime wasn't another than the Premier just Cinter Allen. She was the Transport and Infrastructure minister in charge of these major government projects. While the infiltration of organized crime, of biokis, of corrupt unionits occurred, it happened under her watch. And so that system of

A lot of the focus has been on what's been going on in Victoria's CFMU, but Queensland, as we know, is looking into the union there as well. It's had its own commission of inquiry. So how widespread do you think corruption is across the construction industry.

It's vastly widespread.

We've seen very significant cases of organized crime infiltration and corp union operations in New South Wales, to a lesser extent, Queensland, and certainly to a massive extent in Victoria. There's issues in WA, there's issues in South Australia. This has been a festering problem in Australia for decades. But there is some silver linings the Victorian police. The police in Victoria are doing a good job finally having a.

Crack at some of these criminal elements.

But the same thing is not happening in New South Wales and Queensland and elsewhere where.

Why is it such a problem.

Well, we've had decades long issue of organized crime of union corruption on construction sites. It must be said that this can't happen without corrupt corporates. This is as much a union problem as it is a company problem, and it's a problem that we've seen overseas, most famously in the United States, the FBI had mega task forces set up to crack down on the unions working with the mafia in New York and other places to corrupt the construction industry there.

So we're group of it. In Australia.

It's starting to have some real political consequence now and maybe now this is the moment for change. Will we have a proper cleanup of the sector, this vital sector in Australia or will in five years will we be reading the very same headlines we've been reading most recently.

Nick, since you started investigating this a couple of years ago. There have been some attempts to clean up the industry, but from what you're saying, it sounds like nothing's really changed.

I mean there are there has been some significant change of that must be said. So the bosses of the c for me, you that oversaw this corrupt mess, this infiltration of organized crime into government projects, they've been turfed out, They've left John Sector's gone, his executive.

Has gone in New South Wales.

Darren Greenfield, the former boss of this evening, he literally is sitting in jail right now for taking bribes. So we've had some corrupt elements removed, but what we've not had is a proper, in depth cleanup of the sort that will lead to sustainable, long term change. Companies that have been part of this racket, they've faced a zero accountability. Largely police aren't doing enough. There is some good work by the federal police. There's some great work by the

System wide cleaner. Why does this matter?

I mean, this is money that me and you are spending as taxpayers on these government projects. So our money is being wasted. It could be going into health, education, ex it's not. It's going to the pockets of bikis. We want a fair and level playing field for businesses, for workers in construction. Everybody listened to this will know somebody in one way or another who works in.

The construction industry.

It's a massive employer in this country, from the lowly workers holding traffic signs, to subcontractors to big building companies to union officials. It's a vast part of our economy and we deserve it to be clean. It shouldn't be infiltrated by organized crime. But perhaps the biggest reason is when we have a corrupt union infects government, it leads for bad political outcomes.

It leads for people in parliament who should not be in parliament.

To see, if me, you sponsored people into our states and federal parliaments for many years, should they be there. So we as voters were as citizens, deserve better and we deserve a proper clean out.

And that's why it's so important.

Nick, thanks for speaking with us. Also in the news, Navid Akrim, the man accused of taking part in the Bondai terror attack, has appeared at a Sydney court via video link. The twenty four year old faces fifty nine charges, including fifteen counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist attack over the shooting in December. Akram's father was shot dead by police at the scene of the attack, which took place during a Jewish Harniker by the Sea event.