Wednesday, 3 June 2026

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (10:45): I move:

That this house:

(1)   notes:

(a) Victoria’s deepening integrity crisis, including the continued delay of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s (IBAC) long-awaited Operation Richmond report, allegations of CFMEU corruption on Big Build projects, and the Watson report’s estimate that corrupt conduct may have cost Victorian taxpayers up to $15 billion;

(b) that $15 billion is not an abstract figure, but money that could have funded hospitals, ambulances, mental health beds, schools, roads and essential public services in a state burdened by record debt and failing to meet basic service standards;

(2)   condemns the revelation that Women in Construction Pty Ltd, a labour hire company that won major Big Build work under Labor’s gender equity policy, was founded by a convicted domestic violence offender, managed by a jailed drug trafficker facing further charges, and used by bikie gang bosses from the Bandidos and Comancheros to place associates on taxpayer-funded projects earning up to $300,000 a year;

(3)   notes that this firm operated while the Premier was the responsible minister, was granted a new CFMEU enterprise bargaining agreement as recently as February 2025, and that the Labour Hire Authority moved to rescind its licence only after media exposure;

(4)   calls on the government to support publication of the Operation Richmond report and stronger ‘follow-the-money’ powers for IBAC; and

(5)   affirms that Victorians deserve to know whether public money was spent in the public interest, or funnelled to the crooks, bikies and abusers of women that Labor’s Big Build has enriched.

I move this motion without any particular pleasure but because it is necessary. It concerns something that this house should not look away from, and despite our limitation to directly control it, we are duty bound to keep on looking, keep on talking and keep on fighting it. I am talking of course about Victoria’s deepening integrity crisis – as my motion states, specifically the suppressed IBAC Operation Richmond report, the rot of CFMEU corruption on the Big Build and Geoffrey Watson SC’s devastating estimate that corrupt conduct has cost Victorian taxpayers up to $15 billion and counting. My motion condemns also the grotesque scandal of Women in Construction Pty Ltd, a so-called women-led labour hire firm that won major Big Build contracts under Labor’s own gender equity policy, only to be exposed as a vehicle for convicted domestic violence offenders, drug traffickers and bikie bosses. It calls on the government to finally release the Richmond report and give IBAC the follow-the-money powers it has begged for since 2017.

This is not just another list of scandals. Last time I spoke on integrity here I talked about the quiet contract between government and the people – how Victorians tolerate the theatre and mistakes of politics so long as those in power protect the public purse, respect the public trust and do not abuse the authority they have been given. They do not really want to think about politics; they want to get on with their lives. But today I want to talk about the how: how has this happened, and what does it tell us about the state of democracy in Victoria? Well, it is not good. The starting point is this: corruption is not a weed that springs up at random by bad luck. It is not just a few rotten apples. Bad people will always try to get close to public money. Crooks will always try to exploit a weak system. The scandal is that Labor has built a system so politicised, so incurious and so captured by its own allies that it let them in.

If you want to understand how $15 billion of Victoria’s money could be siphoned off to criminals, to bikies and to the abusers of women, do not start with the criminals. Start with a different question: who turned off the lights? I am afraid the answer is obvious. It is this Labor government. Here is a list – it is by no means definitive. This is a government which has debased question time until the question is met not with an answer but with a sneer. They guillotine debate and ram through legislation that is neither examined nor improved. They have turned the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee into a ministerial protection racket. They sit through public inquiries and answer nothing. They let freedom-of-information requests die of old age. They hide billion-dollar projects behind commercial in confidence. They starve the integrity agencies of the budget and the powers they need and then undermine the people of standing – Geoffrey Watson, Robert Redlich, Deborah Glass – who dare to point it out. They have politicised the public service until advice is no longer fearless but compliant and politicised appointments until plum positions go to former Labor ministers and mates rather than to merit. They pork-barrel public money into the seats they want and withhold it from communities that vote the wrong way. They run taxpayer-funded government information campaigns that are nothing but Labor advertising. They massage the figures and announce surpluses that evaporate on contact with reality. They award the contracts to their friends and make their promises to their donors, their unions and their favoured law firms. And when a council steps out of line, they install a monitor or two or wield a code of conduct to bring it to heel, all while the Premier’s office swells with an army of advisers, media managers and social media operatives whose entire purpose is to manage what you are permitted to see.

Corruption does not begin or end with money in a suitcase or a brown paper bag. When we are talking about Victoria’s grey corruption crisis, it is not the sort of corruption that fits neatly into a criminal charge, but it is corrosive all the same. It is what happens when government ceases to see public money as belonging to the public and starts to see it as a fund to manage political problems, reward political allies and silence political opposition.

Women in Construction Pty Ltd was not operating in some distant corner of the economy. It was not a small business somewhere far removed from government. It was supplying labour to Labor’s own Big Build – the signature project of this government, the great monument to its spending, its debt and its whole political identity. The Age has reported that the company, which presented itself as a leading women-led supplier of female workers on Labor’s Big Build, was in fact owned by a male serial domestic violence abuser, managed by a male drug trafficker also facing family violence charges and deeply connected to bikies and violent criminals. It reportedly supplied dozens of female workers on the North East Link and, at its height, up to 250 workers across multiple Big Build rail and road projects, generating an estimated $2.5 million a week. So a company trading off the language of women’s participation and gender equality was allegedly a vehicle by which underworld figures, bikies and violent men could profit from taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects. A policy sold to Victorians as a way to protect and empower women appears to have been exploited by people with records and associations that should have set every alarm bell ringing.

How could something so awful and so immoral happen? It is because to Labor the Big Build became more than an infrastructure program; it became a political economy. It created contracts, jobs, unions, contractors, consultants, lobbyists, advisers and political beneficiaries all tied to the government’s central political story. Naturally, when a program becomes that politically important, the temptation is always to protect the story rather than protect the taxpayer. That is why Labor cannot properly confront this scandal. It is why they do not want a royal commission. It is why they are delaying powers for IBAC. They have too much to lose and too much to hide. Instead we get deflection on an epic scale.

Just two days ago, after months of blocking, dodging and voting down legislation introduced by the coalition and the Greens, the Premier suddenly stood up and announced a sweeping plan to give IBAC the follow-the-money investigatory powers it has been begging for since 2017. The Premier stood before the cameras and declared that she had zero tolerance for criminal behaviour and that these far-reaching powers will be made retrospective so that nothing is off limits. It sounded impressive; you can certainly see the headline they wanted. But when you read the fine print of the government’s announcement, you realise the cover-up is still very much alive. If these powers are so desperately needed, if the haemorrhage of public cash is so severe and if the Premier is truly no longer satisfied that IBAC has the tools it needs, then why is the government forcing IBAC to wait until late 2027 to actually get them? If these powers are urgent enough to announce today, why are they not urgent enough to legislate today? The answer is painfully obvious. The government has established an expert reference group to drag out the process.

This is a deliberate, cynical political choice designed to ensure that no real independent financial tracing can occur until after the upcoming election. Jacinta Allan wants the headline today, but she wants the actual investigation safely buried until the votes are counted. They are asking Victorians to wait another 18 months while the rorts continue and the evidence disappears. We see the exact pattern of suppression in the fate of IBAC’s Operation Richmond report. This crucial investigation into the conduct of the Labor government’s dealing with the United Firefighters Union back in 2016 has been completed. It is ready for publication, yet it remains completely suppressed from public scrutiny, blocked by endless aggressive court actions just months before Victorians go to the polls. How can the people of Victoria have any confidence that Labor will genuinely expose corruption on the very Big Build projects that they commissioned, funded and politically promoted? They cannot. Even their own Labor colleagues know it. As one anonymous Labor MP told the Australian Financial Review:

This is a deflection of historic proportions … Anything short of a royal commission is not good enough. Jacinta, Daniel … and Tim Pallas handed over a monopoly to thugs disguised as unionism, who then used that monopoly cartel power at the expense of taxpayers.

The Premier was told explicitly back in 2024 that IBAC lacked the legislative power to properly investigate CFMEU and bikie corruption on Big Build sites. She chose to hide that advice. She chose to protect her union allies, her donors and her political mates rather than protect the public purse. Was the government wrong when it voted to block these identical powers in March? Or are they wrong now when they say they are necessary? The only thing that changed between March and June was not the legal reality, it was the catastrophic political polling, or maybe even Jacinta’s doorknocking disasters.

It is certainly like the Premier to change her mind on an inquiry, too, but it cannot be a limited political exercise. A proper inquiry would not merely ask whether a few bad actors behaved badly. It would ask how the system worked. It would ask who benefited. It would ask who knew and who should have known. It would ask why warnings were missed. It would ask why a company like Women in Construction could prosper on taxpayer-funded projects. It would ask why Labor’s own policy settings and union relationships created opportunities for rorting. It would ask the question this government fears most: where did the money go? Did it go to the public interest? Or did it go to crooks, bikies and abusers of women? Did it build roads, hospitals, schools and services? Or did it enrich people who should never have been near public money? Did the government safeguard the taxpayer? Or did it protect the political architecture of its Big Build? The sad truth is, while we might call for this fantasy inquiry, for a royal commission, for new powers, for new laws or for integrity agency funding, any one of these would be in vain. What we need is a new government. The rot is set in too deep. The whole system is utterly, fundamentally compromised. We should be honest about where this leaves us.

My motion today asks the government to release the Richmond report and to give IBAC the powers it has sought since 2017. Those are reasonable demands, and I urge members to support them, but I make no pretence that passing this motion will fix what is broken. The government will not release what it has fought so hard to suppress and will not arm an agency it has spent a decade keeping weak. That is the lesson of this whole sorry record. The problem is not a missing power or an unpublished report, it is a government that long ago stopped seeing public money as the public’s. The quiet contract I spoke of has been broken, and it cannot be repaired by the people who broke it. It can only be repaired by the people of Victoria at the ballot box.

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (11:00): The Greens will be supporting this motion today, although it is frankly appalling that this motion is even necessary. The Premier’s announcement this week that follow-the-money powers might be legislated in 18 months from now and that they will consider reviewing the definition of corrupt conduct is pretty startling in terms of a response to the seemingly endless stream of corruption allegations that have become a defining characteristic of this government. Putting aside that it is just the right thing to do by the Victorian people in the name of integrity, it shows a complete obliviousness to the political threat corruption poses for Labor right now. They are on the nose with voters, and it is in large part because of the stench of corruption. The old Victorian Labor approach of ‘Nothing to see here’, ‘Never apologise’ and ‘Quick, look over here, we’re reannouncing some funding for some shiny thing no-one asked for’ is just not cutting it anymore. Voters are seeing through it, and they are fed up.

The right time to act on this was years ago. The next best time was in this chamber when the Parliament passed an IBAC reform bill. That was back when the Liberals were also more committed to IBAC reform but more on that in a second. That was in 2023. This Parliament in this chamber passed an IBAC bill calling for wideranging reforms to IBAC. The next best time to act was when IBAC reform proposals were put on the table by the Liberals and us earlier this year. The next best time would be to act now, but the announcement kicks the can down the road once again, and no-one is buying it.

We support the Liberals push in this motion for follow-the-money powers to be given to IBAC now. It is something we supported in their bill earlier this year. However, I do have to say I find it very amusing that the Liberals talk such a big game on strengthening IBAC, yet when it comes to one of the key changes that is required – expanding IBAC’s jurisdiction by broadening the definition of ‘corruption’ – they go weak at the knees. Despite supporting our IBAC bill in 2023 that included an expanded definition of corruption, they changed their tune earlier this year, refusing to support our amendments. Yesterday on ABC radio Liberal leader Jess Wilson confirmed that they do not support expanding IBAC’s jurisdiction, saying that the threshold of criminal conduct was adequate – never mind that much of the alleged Big Build corruption is not conduct that meets that threshold, including what is outlined in this motion with respect to women in construction and the sort of grey corruption Mr Welch was interrogating the Treasurer about last night in the committee stage of the Appropriation (2026–2027) Bill 2026 and the sort that Mrs McArthur was just referencing in her contribution. It includes things like allegations of CFMEU selling jobs for cash, organised crime figures being handed enterprise bargaining agreements and union-backed contracts and allegations that CFMEU officials enrich themselves with millions in assets gifted by contractors. As long as IBAC can only investigate corrupt conduct involving alleged serious indictable crimes or common-law offending like bribery or misconduct in office, most of the corruption that the Liberals like to jump up and down about will never be looked into. It makes a mockery of their criticism of the government. The truth is they are not really serious about dealing with corruption or strengthening integrity in this state.

To pick up on another point Mrs McArthur made about the absolute joke that is the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, we completely agree with you. I will remind Mrs McArthur that the Liberal Party voted against our amendments, I think it was last year, that would have installed non-government chairs and ensured that the government did not have a majority on PAEC. The Liberal Party voted against that. So every time they complain about the joke that is PAEC and how it is government controlled and it is just a big circus, I will remind them of that fact. We could have passed amendments that changed that. They chose not to support those.

Turning back to the government, though, without a firm commitment to actually implement changes to IBAC before the next election, the Premier’s announcement is not any better. The Integrity and Oversight Committee made a clear set of recommendations that could and should be implemented now, but instead the government has committed to thinking about doing some of them at some stage down the track. All of it from both Liberal and Labor is just bluster – it is words without action. Meanwhile corruption runs rife through Victoria. It is not good enough. Victorians have had enough. They are struggling to get by day to day, to put food on the table, to pay for medication, to put a roof over their heads, and they see a government that does not think that allegations of $15 billion of public money being lost to corruption is worth a proper and urgent investigation – a government that will say and do anything to stay in power yet is at real risk of losing that power because what it is saying and doing is not what the Victorian public are demanding.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (11:06): I am pleased to rise to speak on this motion. It is a hotchpotch motion, I have got to say; a lot of issues are crammed in here. The theme of this speech is probably going to be addressing some of the blatant inaccuracies and falsehoods that were added by Mrs McArthur in the course of her contribution, because many of them simply cannot stand. Part of the challenge I think we have is that, particularly when we are having debates about integrity and integrity legislation, details matter and being accurate matters, and some of the things that Mrs McArthur said in her contribution were just legally wrong and need to be corrected.

I will go to the first of them. Mrs McArthur, in her motion, makes reference to the Operation Richmond report and said in her contribution today that the government should release the Operation Richmond report. The government does not have the Operation Richmond report. The Operation Richmond report is with IBAC. IBAC is an independent agency of the Parliament. It is not part of the executive government and not subject to the control of a minister. It is independent. IBAC’s decisions about its release schedule for its reports are a matter for it. As IBAC itself has said recently, it has been taken to court, not by the government but by another party, to prevent the release of that report. Facts matter. Mrs McArthur said things that were not factually true, and they need to be corrected, because when you are willing to stand up in a debate like this on integrity questions that matter deeply and say things that are not true, it casts a shadow over everything else that people say, because it demonstrates they are not across the detail and they are not across the very particular elements of the integrity system that they are purporting to defend and uphold and call for the expansion of. Therefore it undermines the credibility and undermines their arguments about what the government should do when they themselves are making such fundamental mistakes. I think that the first thing we need to say is that in these debates you have got to at least start to know what you are talking about and not say things that are factually wrong. Mrs McArthur failed that first test in her contribution, and I think it says a lot about the seriousness with which the opposition does not take these matters and these issues and the details that sit under them.

Mrs McArthur, in her speech, also said that the government should increase funding to the integrity agencies. Well, this year’s budget increases funding to IBAC by 5-and-a-bit per cent – by 5.4 per cent, I think – and that is quite clearly detailed in the budget papers and is in the Parliament’s appropriation bill that is on the notice paper to examine tomorrow. Funding for the integrity agencies across the board is up, and funding for IBAC this year is up by more than 5 per cent. Facts matter. Details matter.

The government has this week announced a very comprehensive response to the Integrity and Oversight Committee’s (IOC) detailed report into the legislative framework for the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission that was tabled in this chamber in December last year and, in accordance with the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003, made its response appropriately. It is a very comprehensive response to a very comprehensive report into very detailed and complicated legislation. I have spoken about this at length in the past, and I do not have time here to go through all of those complexities again, other than to say that I think what was demonstrated in those prior debates, when Mr Mulholland could not answer a simple question about the operational effect of the amendments that the Liberal Party were proposing – he did not know the date that his amendments would be operationally effective from and spent minutes floundering around trying to pluck a date from the air – was again that the Liberal Party cannot be taken seriously when it comes to corruption issues.

What they have also done in the last 48 hours is say, from the Leader of the Opposition’s own mouth, that they do not support the totality of the government’s proposed reforms to IBAC’s legislation. They do not want us to go that far. They do not support what I think is one of the critical recommendations that the IOC report made and that the government has supported in principle, and that is to extend the definition of ‘corrupt conduct’ here in the state of Victoria. They have not at any point justified why they are opposed to the government’s integrity reforms, why they are opposed to the reforms to IBAC’s definition of what corrupt conduct is. They are not up for the reform task that the government is up for. They are not up for taking seriously the need to make IBAC’s powers as comprehensive as they can be. The Leader of the Opposition herself on radio said they did not support the government’s changes, and they have not explained why. We can only surmise that they are not serious about the need to tackle corruption in this state. They are not serious about the need to make sure that our integrity agencies have the legislative framework that is required to do their jobs properly. That is what the government is doing, that is the path the government is on and that is the core of the announcement that the Premier, the Special Minister of State and the Attorney-General made on Monday.

The other point, which we covered a little bit in the short-form documents motion earlier today, was that it is very difficult to take seriously the Liberal Party standing up here and talking about what should happen in the labour hire industry when they voted against the very body that is now undertaking the compliance activity to make sure that only fit and proper people are involved in labour hire operations here in the state of Victoria. If it was up to the Liberal Party, there would not be a Labour Hire Licensing Authority in the state of Victoria. In 2018 they voted against its creation. If it was up to the Liberal Party, there would not be a Labour Hire Licensing Authority doing an investigation into the labour hire firms that are there. Further to that, if Mr Welch had got his way in December last year, the Labour Hire Licensing Authority would not have the powers to make public that it was intending to cancel the licence of an operator. They stood here in December last year and tried to remove provisions from an amendment bill brought forward to this place by the government to give greater powers to the Labour Hire Licensing Authority that led directly last month to that authority issuing a notice that it intended to cancel the licence of the very organisation that Mrs McArthur was talking about in her speech.

You will forgive us. Again on Operation Richmond, again on IBAC funding, again on the government’s response to the IOC report and again on the Labour Hire Licensing Authority and its scope of powers the Liberal Party have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not serious about integrity issues in the state of Victoria. They do not understand the complexity. They are not across the detail. They do not know basic facts. Nothing that the Liberal Party says in this debate can be taken seriously because they have got a track record of falsehoods and voting against action that the government is taking to make sure that our regulators – whether that be the labour hire licensing authority that they voted against or whether it now be the totality of the government’s response to the proposed reforms to IBAC legislation, the Liberal Party say they do not support them. We cannot take the Liberal Party seriously on matters of integrity here in the state of Victoria. They do not know what they are talking about. They keep getting things wrong. They cannot be taken seriously.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (11:16): Let us let us talk about this contribution that we have heard. I am very pleased to support the motion in Mrs McArthur’s name. Let us talk about a hotchpotch. ‘A hotchpotch,’ says the speaker – what about a hotchpotch of government that we have seen over the last decade tearing down what should be good governance, tearing down what should be democracy, and, within their DNA, systematically abusing taxpayer funds again and again? This is a fundamental failure of government. It is in their DNA to have a smorgasbord – a hotchpotch smorgasbord – of corruption under Labor. When you think about this, this is taxpayer funds.

I want to go to part (b), the $15 billion, and I know that is something that Mrs McArthur has been calling out across the chamber, as we heard from others. $15 billion is not an abstract figure, it is a truth – that is the reality. What could it have done if it was not lining gold-plated criminal pockets? Condominiums, snort gangs, corruption, strippers – whatever it is, it has missed the pockets of people who deserve it. We are here in this place as members of Parliament, with Labor as executive government and as the custodians of taxpayer money. Well, they have abandoned that, and now they are quibbling around the outsides in relation to Johnny-come-lately follow-the-money powers that the government, after consultation in 2027, may introduce in 2028 when all is done and dusted. They hope that the polls are reversing and that with Jacinta Allan’s negative 37 points or whatever it is and doorknocking in desperation in Bendigo East with a fantastic Nationals candidate in Andrew Lethlean, they hope that they can hang on for grim death and that people will somehow be placated by these arbitrary, sometime-in-the-future follow-the-money powers. They are completely conned.

Let us talk about what could happen. We know, through the Parliamentary Budget Office – and I am not going to shy away from this; this is an important fact about this loss of $15 billion to our Victorian community – that regional Victorians make up 25 per cent of the population, but over time, over the last years, we have been getting under half of that in our infrastructure. If you took a sliver of that $15 billion – these are the facts, and it has been borne out by others of high integrity making that comment, Geoffrey Watson SC being one of them – with that, what could be done? One-fifth of our schools across the state are in a poor condition – that is not ‘needing work’, that is ‘poor condition’. We can label a whole heap in my Eastern Victoria electorate that have leaking roofs and are so antiquated and in need of upgrades. We also know that our CFA volunteers are having to go cap in hand to the government. They are ageing fleets. I think there are somewhere around 700 that are well over the age of replacement, and it is on the never-never. Ten million dollars each year is absolutely not going to cut it.

If we look at the West Gippsland Hospital and talk about people there, there is a gentleman who pays taxes who owns one additional house, and he rents that out. He is not a big fat cat. He goes to the hospital with chest pains, and the hospital is completely overrun. It has fantastic people, dedicated staff, nurses and professionals who try hard. They do not have a bed for him, so he ends up in the paediatric ward. He is 6 foot 2, and he is sitting in the paediatric ward and then ends up back in the corridor. This is the sort of thing where this rorting government should be spending taxpayer funds, not lining corrupt pockets – in essence, going back to its DNA.

This is an arrogant government. We saw that with the red shirts. We saw that they thought that they could get away with it. We have heard Deborah Glass come out and say that this government and Daniel Andrews at the time was an artifice. We know that this government think that they have the right to do this, and then they have got the cheek to come back and nitpick. Well, the Liberals and Nationals have a plan. We will instruct and instigate a royal commission and get rid of the rorting. We have to do it for the sake of Victorians – we will. We put through our follow-the-money policy private members bill only in March. This government rejected it, and now it is kicking the legislative tin down the road for the never-never.

I do think facts matter, and the fact of the matter is this government has been taking Victorians for a ride. And all the while this government is asking Victorians to tighten their belts. They are asking Victorians to cope with debt that is eye-watering in magnitude. They are asking Victorians to cope with lower services that are under pressure. It is completely unacceptable. All these allegations are truly shocking, and this government bats them away like it is business as usual. Well, it is not business as usual. I completely support the motion before the house. I thank the crossbench and the Greens for taking on board this motion. We have to cleanse this government, we have to have a fresh start in November and we have to bring back proper integrity into this state.

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:23): I would like to start by saying that the Libertarian Party will be supporting this motion, although I am a little bit hesitant to do so. We have both major parties in this state of Victoria and federally going on and on and on about corruption and organised crime and all these things that are happening, and we talk about IBAC as if they are going to fix everything, but really what they are failing to acknowledge are the root causes, which are government policies which have set up the incentives for this organised crime to take root in Victoria.

We talk here and we wonder: ‘What about Women in Construction? How did that come about and why? Why have we got organised crime involved with Aboriginal labour hire agencies?’ Well, we know exactly what has happened here. When the Gender Equality Act 2020 went through – and I might say that was supported by the Liberal Party and in fact the only people that opposed that bill were the Libertarian Party – it created a new vector for organised crime to get involved in construction. What the government have done is set up new tick boxes on their social procurement policy, saying, ‘These companies need a gender equality action plan, and they need to be able to show that they are putting women on construction sites.’ So what organised crime does of course is set up its own labour hire agencies and set up its own arrangements with the unions, and the end result of the Gender Equality Act is that we end up with women getting exploited on construction sites. It is an absolute abomination, what has happened here. No-one wants to actually take responsibility. This act has been a total and utter failure. Not only has it not achieved its objectives, it has resulted in terrible outcomes and an expansion of organised crime.

I have spoken many times about federal excise taxes and the refusal to acknowledge the root cause of the organised crime explosion in black market tobacco – which I might add are the same people that are doing the rorts on these construction sites, the same people that are involved in drugs, the same people that are involved in illegal booze now. The automatic increases in excise taxes of course were instituted under a federal Liberal government by Malcolm Turnbull – he was the one that brought that in. No-one has actually had the guts to stand up to the big public health lobby and tell them that they have failed, tell them that they have caused an explosion in organised crime, because they are the ones that are responsible for it. In fact it has gotten so bad, these same networks that are involved in construction organised crime, involved in drugs and involved in tobacco, that there was speculation in the media – and the federal police and Victoria Police are investigating it – that some of these firebombing attacks may not actually be related to extortion and things, they are actually foreign influence in Australia.

These policies have put our national security at risk, and no-one is even taking responsibility or saying, ‘Oh, gee, maybe we made a mistake with that. Maybe we made a mistake with the Gender Equality Act. Maybe we made a mistake with our social procurement policies.’ No-one is looking at that. The Liberal Party certainly does not seem to be looking at it. Labor certainly is not looking at it. If the Liberal Party were serious, they would be coming out and saying, ‘We’re going to repeal it. We’re going to get rid of it. We’re going to have a procurement policy that just looks at the best product for the best price, from the most reputable supplier, and get rid of everything else.’ But they are not saying that. That is why the major parties are in such trouble at the moment, because Victorians see the explosion of these things, Victorians see the corruption that is happening and they do not see any answers. The answer is to get rid of some of these policies that have been either brought in or supported by both major parties in this place, and it needs to end.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (11:27): Acting President, thank you so much for the opportunity to rise today and speak on this motion regarding our state’s integrity framework and of course workplace safety. This motion before us provides a valuable, valuable opportunity to lay out the facts about how Victoria’s integrity institutions actually operate, what this government is doing to strengthen them and the extensive work being done on the ground to support and protect women in the workforce who are helping build this state. It is important to state clearly right from the outset that the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission is completely independent of the executive government. This total independence is a key part of our democratic system, ensuring that IBAC can provide independent oversight free from any political influence from the government of the day. A critical part of IBAC’s work is to undertake investigations, conduct examinations, handle prosecutions and produce public reports, but we must remember that the publication and timing of these reports is entirely a matter for IBAC itself. A critical element of the legislative framework that guides the publication of these documents is the natural justice process, and that process must be allowed to play out fully and independently, without any intervention from the government or the opposition. It is completely improper for those opposite to suggest that the executive government should interfere with that independent timeline.

When it comes to expanding the capabilities and powers of our integrity agencies, this government has consistently shown that we are prepared to do the heavy lifting. Just this week the Premier and the Special Minister of State from this place released the government’s formal response to the Integrity and Oversight Committee’s inquiry into the adequacy of the IBAC legislative framework. This committee undertook a massive amount of detailed work on what is an incredibly complex and interconnected system, and as has been said before, of the 31 recommendations made by the committee, 29 were directed to the government, and the government is supporting 21 of those recommendations in principle and placing the remaining eight under active review. The government is listening and acting in support of the principal recommendations that give IBAC the follow-the-money power, as it is known. Because Victoria’s integrity framework is complex, any amendments to the IBAC act must naturally have systemwide impacts affecting multiple agencies, including Victoria Police. For this very reason follow-the-money reforms simply cannot be considered in isolation. As part of this, there is the establishment of the time-limited expert reference group, and this group will be chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Justice and Community Safety, and its core membership will include IBAC, the Ombudsman, Integrity Oversight Victoria and Victoria Police. This group will carefully consider the legal and operational implications of their supported recommendations and provide direct advice on their implementation, including how best to ensure that the new follow-the-money laws can be applied retrospectively.

Turning to the specific matters raised regarding transport, infrastructure and industrial relations, this government welcomes the action taken by the Labour Hire Authority to investigate deeply concerning allegations within the construction sector as we await the outcomes of those ongoing investigations. Let me state clearly that all women deserve to work free from harassment, discrimination and violence. Gender inequality is a major driver of violence against women, including workplace sexual harassment, and this government is taking real, practical action to prevent it across all priority industries. We have already announced the $5.5 million Safe Workplaces for Women initiative, supporting three innovative programs designed to deliver advice, tools and training to both employers and employees. As part of this investment the Victorian Trades Hall Council has been funded to deliver safe workplaces training across priority industries and conduct outreach with women workers to respond directly to the issues impacting them at work. The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is working closely with small to medium businesses to help employers understand their legal obligations and address gendered issues in the workplace. Furthermore, the Working Women’s Centre Victoria has been funded to expand its vital legal services, education and outreach into rural and regional areas across the state. These are about equipping women with the concrete knowledge and support to identify gendered workplace issues and safely exercise their rights at work.

I am really proud – and I spoke about it with much pride – that Victoria became the first jurisdiction in Australia to pass legislation significantly restricting non-disclosure agreements in workplace sexual harassment matters, ensuring workplaces are held accountable and victim-survivors are allowed to speak openly about their experiences. Our commitment to safe and inclusive environments for women in trades extends across the massive pipeline of projects. We have implemented recommendations from the Apprenticeships Taskforce to support women to finish their training, including creating the Apprentice Helpdesk to provide a one-stop shop for advice on wages, entitlements, health and wellbeing. Because of these targeted initiatives, recent data from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research reveals that nearly 80 per cent more women are training in traditionally male-dominated trades today than there were just five years ago. We have invested $7.9 million specifically to diversify the male-dominated construction industry, and we have established Victoria’s first Building Equality Policy, which mandates targets and gender equality action plans on government-funded projects – over $20 million – supported by our eight-year Building Equitable Futures Strategy 2024–‍32.

While bringing more women into construction is vital, they must also be safe and respected onsite, which is why we have asked the regulator to monitor for trends that indicate patterns of gender discrimination through our complaints referral service. Other key initiatives include our free TAFE literacy, numeracy and digital support courses, the apprentice employee assistance program, the $8 million Apprenticeships Innovation Fund and our Tradie Bootcamp, which will continue to support women through classroom and worksite experiences.

While we have heard the opposition standing up and claiming they want transparency around the decisions of the Labour Hire Authority, they have zero standing on this matter. The Liberals made it explicitly clear that they did not want the Labour Hire Authority to have new publication powers. Their own then Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations stated in this Parliament that they wanted to remove the provision allowing the Labour Hire Authority to publish details of someone it is considering exercising a power against. They wanted an unregulated system, and now they want to lecture us on the oversight. Where there is genuine wrongdoing, this government have shown that they will take decisive action. We have strongly supported the Commonwealth administration to do its work, and as of 31 March this year Taskforce Hawk has charged 22 people with 88 separate offences. We have significantly strengthened the powers of the Labour Hire Authority, which as of 13 May has cancelled 153 labour hire licences within the construction sector, implementing of course, complementary to that, a far more rigorous fit and proper person test for granting and renewing licences.

We have established a dedicated alliance to collaborate on tackling corruption. We have set up a brand new complaint referral service for anyone that has concerns about corrupt behaviour on government construction sites. We have strengthened Victoria’s unlawful association scheme through the Criminal Organisations Control Amendment Act 2024, which explicitly bans members of specified organised crime groups from entering Victorian government worksites. We have not stopped taking action and we will not stop doing the hard work to ensure our workplaces are safe and our institutions remain strong. I know in fact that we have many members of this side of the chamber that wish to make a contribution on this motion and lay forth our commitment to a strong integrity framework and continued protections in workplace safety. With that, I will leave my remarks there. I do look forward to other contributions from this side.

 Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (11:36): I rise to speak in support of this motion moved by Mrs Bev McArthur. We are in the midst of a deepening integrity crisis in this government. This motion is quite straightforward: $15 billion is straightforward because $15 billion cannot go missing, $15 billion does not get up and walk on its own, and it is certainly not an administration error. It goes to the fundamental question of whether public money in Victoria has been spent in the public interest or whether Labor’s Big Build has become a vehicle for corruption, criminal influence and the failure of oversight. For months now, the Premier has resisted the calls from the coalition and IBAC itself to strengthen Victoria’s anti-corruption powers, but in recent days the Premier Jacinta Allan has admitted that IBAC does not have the power it needs to do its job. This admission should come as alarming to every single Victorian. If what the Premier says is true, why has Labor waited so long to give IBAC the power it so clearly needs? We are told by the Premier that IBAC will receive follow-the-money powers, however, not until the end of 2027 – another 18 months down the track.

The Premier wants headlines today to appeal to voters, but the reality is that these reforms are delayed way, way beyond the next election. This is not accountability; this is political management. These powers are urgently needed by IBAC, which is extremely limited once public moneys move beyond direct government entities into unions, contractors, subcontractors and labour hire firms, yet this is precisely where corruption risks thrive – on major taxpayer-funded projects. Time and time again, Labor has responded that the matter has been ‘referred to Victoria Police’, knowing fully well that Victoria Police is not equipped to investigate systematic public sector corruption. One would ask: why? Police play a vital role in keeping the community safe, but they cannot replace a properly empowered anti-corruption watchdog like IBAC. Corruption is not always purely on criminals. It often involves inflated costs, improper influence, job selling, questionable subcontract arrangements and public funding flowing through private networks. If IBAC cannot follow taxpayer money wherever it goes, corruption will unavoidably take hold. Let us consider the findings of the Watson report, which estimated that corrupt conduct has cost the Victorian taxpayer up to $15 billion. That $15 billion could have been invested in hospitals, ambulances, mental health services, schools, roads, police resources and the list goes on. If that $15 billion had been invested in those areas, we would not be in the situation we are in here in Victoria. To put it simply, $15 billion could have funded the construction of around 10 new Footscray Hospitals in my electorate – that is deeply troubling to me.

There is the even more deeply troubling case of Women in Construction, as mentioned in this motion. This company secured a major Big Build contract under Labor’s gender equality policies, yet it has been linked to bikie gangs and individuals and serious criminal entities. It was reportedly founded by a convicted domestic violence offender and managed by a jailed drug trafficker now facing further family violence charges. If these reports are accurate, this represents not just a failure of paperwork by the government but also a failure to do due diligence by the government and a betrayal of every woman this policy was meant to support. In response to serious allegations involving bikies, organised crime, inflated costs and public money flowing through private entities, Labor’s answer when asked is, ‘Wait until the end of 2027’ – 18 months down the track. Now, this is simply not good enough. This is not leadership from the Premier.

So what does leadership look like? Leadership means publishing the findings of Operation Richmond. Leadership means immediately granting IBAC follow-the-money powers – not 18 months down the track. Leadership would mean admitting the Victorian integrity system has failed to keep pace with the scale of Labor’s infrastructure spending and making sure that every missing dollar is accounted for. In contrast, the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Kew in the other house, has indicated a government she led would take these decisive actions, pursuing every dollar lost to corruption, criminal influence and organised crime on government worksites. She would establish a royal commission into the CFMEU and also strengthen the IBAC follow-the-money rules and tackle organised crime through the introduction of tough new laws modelled on the United States racketeer influenced and corrupt organisations framework. Mr Limbrick has mentioned organised crime on a regular basis. This is something we need to do, and this is how we need to go about it – by tackling and recovering the money through a joint taskforce, with Victoria Police, the federal police and the Australian Taxation Office investigating criminal activities, seizing assets linked to corruption on Big Build sites and returning those funds back to the victims.

We cannot let Labor continue to delay action on this issue. Victorians deserve accountability, they deserve transparency, and most importantly, they deserve a clear plan to restore integrity in government big builds and big projects – not the funnelling of millions and millions of dollars to criminal entities. Public money belongs to the public, not to corrupt operators. Victorians deserve to know whether the Big Build has been managed in their interests or whether it has allowed public funds to be funnelled to the wrong places. For these reasons, I support this motion.

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (11:43): I rise to make a contribution to this debate on the state of the construction industry in Victoria. The construction industry is vital to the economic wellbeing of our state, and to see poor behaviour and bad actors in the industry has been deeply disappointing to many of us in this place. This case study clearly demonstrates the reasons why the Labor government’s recent decisive actions to give greater powers to the Labour Hire Authority and demand greater accountability for labour hire firms were so important. We of course welcome action taken by the Labour Hire Authority to investigate these deeply concerning allegations and await the outcomes of further investigations.

Gender inequality is a major driver of violence against women, and all women deserve to work free from harassment, discrimination and violence. That is why it is important that we have the Labour Hire Authority. But back in 2018, those opposite voted against it. I point to Mr Welch opposite, who has been shadow minister for industrial relations, who said, clear as day, that the Liberals would like to remove the provisions that allow the Labour Hire Authority to publish details of someone it is considering exercising a power against. We on this side know the importance of having a strong LHA and understand the critical role it plays in the industrial relations framework. Meanwhile, those opposite are still trying to catch up.

As already set out many times over, violence against women is unacceptable, and we have no tolerance for it. Last March we announced a $5.5 million safe workplaces for women initiative supporting three innovative programs that support both employers and employees to address these issues by delivering advice, tools and training which work to help and strengthen community understanding of workplace rights and responsibilities. We on this side of the chamber want to see more women become involved in the construction industry, not fewer, and I would like to think that this is something that all of us on this side of the chamber would get behind and support. We want to support women in construction and encourage more people into this vital industry. Construction is a pivotal element of not just our economy but the economy in the world. It is crucial that we continue to reform and improve the sector, particularly as it relates to promoting women in the field. It would be completely inappropriate to use this as an opportunity to demonise, undermine and cut the wages of those construction workers who have been doing the right thing in the important work that they do building the homes and infrastructure that this state needs. This means developing stronger integrity and oversight systems which protect those workers and contractors who are doing the right thing.

One of the key measures recommended by the Wilson review which we have implemented is the creation of Workforce Inspectorate Victoria as a new construction complaints referral service. This is a critical new service which will be able to receive complaints and reports of wrongdoing from those working in construction sites and ensure that they are forwarded to the appropriate regulator. Crucially, the construction complaints referral service has new legal powers to protect whistleblowers and ensure that workers who make reports are protected from violence, harassment, intimidation and reprisals. We have also implemented reforms which require contractors on public projects to report criminal behaviour as a contractual requirement, implementing another of the Wilson report’s recommendations. Other integrity reforms include giving new powers to the Labour Hire Authority to strengthen the fit and proper person test and to demand documentation from labour hire businesses. Also important will be the ability to more strictly define where a business is considered to be providing labour hire licensing. These measures will improve accountability and integrity on construction sites. We have implemented these changes because accountability on construction sites means safer construction sites. Accountability on construction sites also means fairer construction sites. Further reforms as recommended by the Wilson report are planned for later down the line.

It is those of us on this side of the chamber who have actually acted to fix things and have set the construction industry on a better course. We note that the Integrity and Oversight Committee have undertaken detailed work on the complex integrity framework recently and have tabled a report to Parliament with recommendations for the government. Crucially, the government supports in principle recommendations to give IBAC follow-the-money powers. Both IBAC and the Integrity and Oversight Committee have recommended that these powers be legislated and given to the IBAC to empower IBAC to fight corruption in this state. In this way IBAC will now have the ability to protect public money which has been given to a private contractor.

Victoria’s integrity framework is complex and interconnected, and amendments to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Act 2011 are likely to have systemwide impacts affecting multiple agencies, including Victoria Police. The Allan Labor government is supporting a range of other recommendations in principle, totalling 21 recommendations accepted in principle, from the Integrity and Oversight Committee’s report. Stronger investigation powers such as digital search warrants also acknowledge the reality that we live in and give IBAC greater ability to conduct 21st-century investigations. These changes will come after an important and considered committee process which examines all various elements and implications of reform. The Allan Labor government is always committed to getting these things right, and that requires time and consideration, particularly as it relates to our important committee processes.

The Allan Labor government is also dedicated to promoting and supporting a vibrant construction industry free of violence and intimidation. We on this side of the chamber recognise that having a strong construction industry is critical to Victoria’s future as a state which is growing rapidly. It is also critical to our great capital city Melbourne. This side of the chamber is ambitious for Victoria and ambitious for Melbourne. We recognise that for Melbourne to continue to be a great international city we need to build more homes and better infrastructure and take a 21st-century approach to city planning. If this means that we will face problems in the construction industry, the answer is not to strangle the industry, cut wages, put people out of work and stall our major projects. The answer is to respond accordingly and stamp out bad behaviour and support those who we need to help. It is for the government to take responsibility for setting things right, to put in the work to fix it and to get the construction industry back on track. When a particular firm is doing the wrong thing, there must be accountability and there must be action taken to restore integrity. That is exactly what we are doing. That is why we commissioned the formal review into Victorian government bodies’ engagement with construction companies and construction unions. That is why we have done the work to implement the recommendations of the review, and that work is ongoing.

It is a strong commitment of the Allan Labor government to ensure that women have the same access to any field of work that they wish to pursue as any man does. This government has worked hard to ensure more women are training in construction than any other trade. We have legislated for guaranteed free TAFE, which recently hit another anniversary milestone. Over 60 per cent of the students benefiting from free TAFE are women. Over 108,000 women in Victoria have benefited from free TAFE. Then there is the Building Equality Policy, which has three main areas of focus: (1) to meet project-specific gender equality targets, (2) to engage more women across the sector as apprentices and trainees and (3) to implement the gender equality plans, which work to reduce skill shortages and promote gender equality. I hope my colleagues throughout this chamber can agree all of these goals are worthy. This policy mandates targets and gender equality action plans on government-funded projects over $20 million to create training and employment opportunities for women. Having women involved in the construction sector is about more than ticking a check box; it is about letting young girls and women throughout Victoria dream and aspire to any career they wish to have. Greater diversity makes our workplace stronger. It helps fill skills shortages and gives our industries a more sustainable future. This is why the mandates and the affirmative policies are so important. Before the implementation of the policy only around 2.5 per cent of building and construction trades were women. This is not a sustainable situation, and this is not a desirable situation. Making the construction sector more accessible for women is primarily about giving women more choice about what sort of career they want to pursue.

We have a proven track record in Victoria of taking action where unacceptable behaviour arises, and we have a proven track record of supporting women in the construction sector. I am proud to be a part of the Allan Labor government, which is committed to supporting women, committed to supporting a strong and vibrant construction sector and committed to transparency.

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (11:53): From the outset I just want to admit that this is a topic that I am very sensitive about because it comes to the protection and the safety of women. I tell you what, when you have sat with families who have had their daughter brutally murdered with a dumbbell or their daughter brutally stabbed to death, you do not like to sit and listen to people like Mr Batchelor spit venom.

Victoria is not a safe space for women – it is not. I stand here week after week and I share heartbreaking stories about women, about what they have been through, about what their families have been through, and the reality is year after year – not week after week, not month after month but year after year – they are being ignored. I want to mostly spend my time until question time addressing some of the things that I just think are completely outrageous in what we have heard from the government.

Ms Watt said, ‘When there is a genuine wrongdoing, we will take decisive action.’ Well, I want to know if this is a genuine wrongdoing. Shane Robertson killed Katie Haley with a dumbbell bar. The court heard she died from a blunt injury to the head. The judge said:

It is clear to me that you attacked your partner in uncontrollable rage and it was your intention to kill her …

The judge said that the crime scene was described as ‘gruesome and horrific’. She received at least three blows to the face and died from a blow to the throat. I would say that that is a genuine wrongdoing. There has been no decisive action from this government; in fact in this particular case this man received 427 days off his sentence. I want to know if this is a genuine wrongdoing: Luay Sako stalked Celeste Manno relentlessly, broke into her home through her bedroom door and stabbed her – a 23-year-old girl – to death. Twenty-seven times he stabbed her. He used a hammer to break in. He stabbed her 23 times in 2½°minutes. Her cause of death was a stab to the heart. Justice Dixon said that it was done ‘with chilling efficiency’. He has no remorse for his actions. He will be eligible for parole in 2050, and he received 27 days off his sentence. To this day those recommendations that were given in order to respond to what I would call a genuine wrongdoing have not been implemented, and the fact that these people have got days off their sentences shows that this government is so hypocritical when it comes to protection of women. If it was true, what Ms Watt said – ‘When there is a genuine wrongdoing, we will take decisive action’ – I do not know what a genuine wrongdoing is.

I want to speak directly to point (2) and point (5) of this motion, which seem to have been overlooked. I really admire Mr Berger; I think he is a fantastic guy. But when a motion comes like this and you talk about women accessing free TAFE, I think, ‘My gosh, it’s time that the government gets its head out of the clouds and begins to respond to what is actually going on in the state of Victoria.’ Mind you, I will say – I believe that is a genuine wrongdoing with Celeste Manno – since that report was handed down in 2022, every single year without fail the numbers of non–family violence stalking have increased. They are getting worse every year. I just find it, quite frankly, unbelievable. Point (2) talks about ‘the revelation that Women in Construction … a labour hire company that won major Big Build work under Labor’s gender equity policy, was founded by a convicted domestic violence offender, managed by a jailed drug trafficker facing further charges’. The facts about this are that a woman was locked in a small room while somebody smoked ice and she was beaten up – and you decide to talk about free TAFE. Completely missing the whole point of this motion is just unbelievable, and I think it says a lot about where you are putting your priorities. Another thing that happened: a woman was brutally assaulted – and this is so disgustingly ironic – by a health and safety officer on a government worksite. This is happening under your watch. So yes, do free TAFE and do those things that you believe in, but when a motion like this comes to the house, don’t you dare talk about it, because this goes to the safety of women. I have heard Premier Jacinta Allan say, ‘The safety of Victorians is my number one priority.’ Well, I tell you what, you would not know it by listening to you lot. It is absolutely quite disgusting.

We will quickly go to the $15 billion. That is not an abstract figure. That money that has been lost under your watch to corruption could have paid to implement the 45 recommendations from the stalking reform. And I see Ms Shing having a laugh there, but it could have paid for that. It could have paid for the $20 million – plus more, with a whole heap of change – for the crime prevention programs that your government has cut. It could pay for kids to actually learn how to read using the science of learning and a phonics-based approach. It could fund that – the number one protective factor that stops people getting involved in criminal activity. It could have paid for rehab, it could have supported victims and their families and it could have gone to early intervention programs. I will finish by saying this: I do not understand why when there is such darkness going on and while there is such pain going on you would not want to shine a light on them. I commend the motion to the house.

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.