The $15bn scandal that brought down Jacinta Allan

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
A listener production.

**Chris Spyrou** (0:08)
Hey, it's Chris Spyrou with you. Welcome to this Sunday episode of The Briefing. Jacinta Allan stepped down as the Premier of Victoria this week, and a major factor in her resignation was allegations of corruption inside the state's massive Big Build projects.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:22)
A crime syndicate's playground.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:24)
Cfmeu crime syndicate has cost the state $15 to $30 billion.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:29)
The Premier needs to explain how that occurred under her watch.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:34)
Sites were hotbeds for drug trafficking and even strippers.

**Chris Spyrou** (0:38)
Mobsters hiring strippers, tradies being paid for shifts they never worked, entire drug networks running on the public purse. That was the picture that was painted in a major report earlier this year, one that accused the Cfmeu of bleeding Victorian taxpayers of an eye-watering $15 billion, while the government looked the other way.
At the time, the pressure ramped up again on the Victorian government to call a royal commission, to dig into every criminal link and why nothing was done sooner. But those calls were brushed off by Jacinta Allan.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:10)
The former federal liberal government conducted a royal commission. It went for years.
All it resulted in was five failed criminal investigations. That is not getting the outcome because clearly, it did not address the issue that we are now talking about.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:29)
Well, that all changed this week. Allan's deputy, Ben Carroll, took over the top job, and almost immediately after being sworn in, he announced a royal commission. So today, we're revisiting my chat with award-winning journo from the Age, Nick McKenzie. He knows everything there is to know about these allegations. We recorded this chat back in February, and it was all about that report and the allegations. Here's that chat for you now.
Nick, welcome back to The Briefing. It feels like Groundhog Day every time we have you on to chat about the Cfmeu and Victoria. Can you walk us through some of the new details that we learnt last week?

**Nick McKenzie** (2:06)
Yeah, I really look forward to the day that you guys don't call me to ask me to talk about the Cfmeu and Victoria, but it's not Groundhog Day for this reason. For the first time ever, last week, we had a formal inquiry say unequivocally that the Victorian government knew that there was significant organized crime and corruption on its major projects funded by every taxpayer in Australia through federal Albanese government funding and Victorian funding. Knew that this corruption was going on and turned a blind eye, so basically enabling it. Think about that, that's money going to the pockets of biker gangs, gangland figures, corrupt players, dodgy companies. The other critical thing to really explode into this story was this conclusion that the cost of that rorting and corruption and waste was $15 billion. That's the conclusion of Jeffrey Watson, SC, this anti-corruption expert.
So they had major, major findings. The government knew and turned a blind eye and it cost tax payers $15 billion smackaroos.

**Chris Spyrou** (3:09)
I guess the question is why?

**Nick McKenzie** (3:12)
It's a huge problem for the government. The accusation that it's negligence or it's turning a blind eye was enabling crime gangs, the Comancheros, the Rebels, the Mongols, gangland figures to profit on state government jobs with the backing of corrupt Cfmeu officials is, that's a stunning allegation or conclusion. There's a lot of evidence that it's correct. And it's a huge political headache or nightmare for labour, specifically the Victoria Nova government, but to an extent as well, the Albanese government has long been stent around Cfmeu, but to have this all laid bare as it was last week and to really explode into the international debate, the national conscience is really significant. Why is labour ducking and weaving? Well, it would seem to be that the Victorian government at least does not want the public to know who knew what, when and why there wasn't action taken.
Those questions aren't going away. I guess the scandal keeps rolling and rolling and rolling.

**Chris Spyrou** (4:11)
I guess I want to talk a little bit about the reductions. We kind of had this report drop. So this is all happening in Queensland. There's an inquiry going on into the Cfmeu there. And then we had this report drop in some capacity with reductions and then we had it released without reductions or at least we've heard about what was redacted. What can you tell us about that?

**Nick McKenzie** (4:29)
Yeah, it's a confusing state of affairs. I mean, the fact that we have a Queensland commission of inquiry into the Cfmeu, examining what went on with the Cfmeu in Victoria is already a bit head spinning, but ultimately that's politics at play. The Queensland government is a conservative government. So it's called a Royal Commission style inquiry up north to look at the Cfmeu.