Leaked files show Big Build went bad years ago, as former corruption chief calls for major inquiry

Complaints of rampant rorting, intimidation and kickbacks across Big Build projects have been secretly lodged with Victorian government officials for years, undermining Labor’s claims it was blindsided by the scandal engulfing the construction industry and prompting the state’s former integrity chief to back a wide-ranging inquiry.

A major investigation by this masthead has obtained a trove of leaked internal state government correspondence that, for the first time, shows government officials were repeatedly warned of Big Build corruption from early 2023 to as recently as June this year.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan at a level crossing removal project in July. The program is one of those alleged to have overseen wasteful spending.Credit: Penny Stephens

Some of the wrongdoing was reported in detailed spreadsheets maintained by the state government’s multibillion-dollar Level Crossing Removal Project as part of its daily events reporting channel.

In the confidential spreadsheets, government level crossing officials were told repeatedly throughout the first half of 2023 about extortion and “blackmail” tactics by a cabal of subcontractors “aligned” with the CFMEU.

This unlawful behaviour was causing major financial impact to taxpayers, reports sent via the daily events reporting system to government officials in March, April and May 2023 state.

Another internal file from June 2023 complained of a significant cost to the Big Build because of unlawful behaviour, while another file disclosed potentially unlawful demands to pay workers for shifts not actually worked.

‘The list of allegations piling up against the Big Build is higher than the Rialto Towers.’

Among the workers on this payment list, which has been separately seen by this masthead, are several bikie gang members.

Another set of leaked confidential complaints from Big Build subcontractors, also sent to government agencies, describe claims that firms were forced to renovate the private homes of project supervisors or pay off middlemen to secure work.

In one formal complaint, an engineering firm alleges it was directed to install a pergola removed from a railway station in the backyard of a Big Build project manager; to concrete the driveway of the grandmother of a second project manager; and to complete a $50,000 renovation on a third Big Build manager’s house.

Other leaked formal complaints sent to top public servants managing the scheme document alleged corrupting of the Big Build’s Indigenous employment scheme.

Some of these complaints were copied to Labor ministers, with one Indigenous firm requesting in July 2024 a response to “issues raised over two years ago” about corruption.

Another damning formal complaint, also obtained by this masthead, has been made by a senior ex-public servant who worked on delivering the Big Build scheme for the Victoria government.

The senior ex-official alleged in a statement sent to the Victorian anti-corruption commission in early 2025 that they had witnessed a culture of maladministration, waste and cover-up inside the headquarters of Labor’s huge roads and rail infrastructure program.

In a complaint sent to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC), the former senior official described “gross negligence” and a “lack of care with the use of public money” within the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority, which is responsible for delivering $100 billion worth of Big Build projects.

“My concerns regarding this have been over many years; however, I have not made any reports for fear of losing my job,” the complaint states.

The scale of reported alleged wrongdoing was so “very alarming” that former IBAC commissioner Robert Redlich, KC, told this masthead there was urgent and ample reason to consider a broad inquiry that could do what no other agency, including police or IBAC, had so far done.

Former IBAC commissioner Robert Redlich.Credit: Jason South

Redlich, a former Supreme Court judge, said that if police or IBAC were “unable to do more than look at very specific allegations of criminal conduct, then consideration should be given to a royal commission”.

“The volume of material suggests that there are things that plainly need to be very urgently reviewed and addressed,” he said.

“By failing to deal with these issues, it’s particularly significant because the Big Build continues. If it is taking place in an environment which facilitates frivolous, wasteful expenditure or misconduct and a lack of proper oversight, then not only has money already been lost but it will continue to be lost.”

Transparency International chief executive Clancy Moore said the Big Build was “plagued by allegations of corruption, cronyism and cost blowouts”.

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“The list of allegations piling up against the Big Build is higher than the Rialto Towers,” Moore said, demanding the Allan government launch a systemic inquiry.

Despite the absence of a single substantive criminal charge, Premier Jacinta Allan has repeatedly insisted that her response to 14 months of Building Bad revelations by this masthead – including Labor’s moves to boost law enforcement powers and back CFMEU administrator Mark Irving, KC – is adequate.

Last week, Irving demanded greater government intervention to fight endemic wrongdoing in the construction sector.

On Wednesday, this masthead reported claims by a military veteran helping struggling ex-soldiers get jobs on the North East Link that he was forced to pay a gangland-linked figure to gain access to the $26 billion government project.

On Wednesday, Allan said the government had no tolerance for illegal behaviour and that there were now requirements to report it on its projects. She accepted there had been issues with complaints being shuffled between agencies but said this was being addressed.

“It’s not acceptable that these things get moved around within agencies, which is why we are setting up a mechanism for that,” she said.

She said the government’s pledges to strengthen labour-hire rules and whistleblower protections along with the federal government’s move to put the CFMEU in administration meant a broader inquiry was not needed.

“We’ve had a royal commission in this country, and all it did was give a lot of work to lawyers and not deliver an outcome,” she said, referring to the Abbott government’s inquiry into trade unions.

The public servant’s IBAC complaint focuses on conduct within the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority (VIDA), which oversees and manages the Big Build.

The authority is responsible for more than 200 projects, including the Metro Tunnel and North East Link and the removal of 110 level crossings, being built by “alliances” and joint ventures between giant civil construction companies such as Webuild, Laing O’Rourke, John Holland and Acciona.

“I truly believe VIDA and its use of public money should be investigated,” the former senior public servant states in the January complaint to IBAC.

The ex-official declined to comment to this masthead, citing their need for confidentiality as a whistleblower. They cannot be named because they have been granted protected disclosure status.

The Big Build has already been plagued by reports of multibillion-dollar blowouts, and the whistleblower’s allegations focused on excessive internal spending.

The scathing IBAC complaint alleges VIDA’s culture permitted “regularly spending significant sums on corporate projects that are frivolous” and efforts to conceal wasteful spending.

The whistleblower is scathing in their formal complaint of what they describe as VIDA’s unaccountable reliance on overcharging private sector consultants who delivered little value to taxpayers “costing millions of dollars to ‘fail fast’”.

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“The setting up and use of consultants is encouraged to manage ebbs and flows of work, despite none of this work being critical or crucial to the removal of level crossings,” the complaint states.

Another consulting firm is identified in the complaint as being heavily used “in various capacities that could either have been serviced from within or VPS [Victorian Public Service] staff recruited.” One consultant was billing VIDA about $45,000 a month, the complaint states.

“Some teams are made up almost completely of technical advisers from … consultancies,” it says.

According to the whistleblower, VIDA withheld adverse spending information from the Department of Premier and Cabinet. Examples cited include a consultant paid more than $850,000 for a project to reduce silos within VIDA but which the complainant alleges failed to deliver.

Another allegedly “frivolous” spend involved hundreds of thousands of dollars on managing a redundant email system.

The mismanagement of “budgeting and forecasting of technology projects” extended to “keeping details actively hidden”, the claim said.

The whistleblower has also raised concerns about corporate restructuring within VIDA “occurring with no strategy” and “to be seen as looking like something is being done” to save taxpayer funds.

A VIDA spokesperson said it had zero tolerance for unlawful behaviour and had robust integrity systems in place to prevent and detect corruption and ensure appropriate spending of taxpayer money.

The leaked files include allegations of wrongdoing with little or no connection to the CFMEU, which has been a focal point of concern, instead pointing to company corruption, taxpayer waste and official inaction.

Complaints sent to Big Build officials and, ultimately, IBAC by a subcontractor on multiple rail level crossing removal sites alleges corruption involving senior project managers.

‘Employees were taken off site during critical works, during their full-time hours to complete the personal works.’

The complainant, whom this masthead is not naming because they are a whistleblower, has documented the alleged misappropriation of “government resources, government funds, materials and supplies from sites and projects”.

He claimed Big Build project managers directed his firm “to divert resources from critical government project works to complete works on their private houses and properties”.

In their complaint, which was disputed by the accused managers, the subcontractor states that “if we refused to undertake personal works for project senior management, we were threatened that we would not be paid for our contract works, would be severely financially impacted, would not be considered for upcoming projects”.

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The firm’s IBAC complaint file identifies four Big Build project managers that sought personal renovations, claiming the requests “diverted government resources and funds” and one manager wanted “over $50,000 of renovation works undertaken on his personal property”.

The subcontractor also alleged he had to “disassemble a pergola on site from a level crossing removal project and … transport the pergola to his [project manager’s] home and had two of our employees sent to his house to re-erect the pergola in his backyard”.

“Employees were taken off site during critical works, during their full-time hours to complete the personal works ... on the basis that if we wanted to maintain our contracts on the level crossing removal project we needed to satisfy project managers.”

Project officials said that complainant was disgruntled because his firm had collapsed due to mismanagement, but confirmed his complaint had prompted an internal inquiry.

Two of the accused project managers subsequently paid a sum of money into the bank account of the subcontractor and were disciplined.

Among the other formal Big Build complaints are claims the Victorian government’s social procurement rules requiring contractors to seek to employ a percentage of Indigenous workers have sparked systemic nepotism and cronyism.

This masthead has previously revealed how gangland figures exploited veterans or Indigenous labour-hire companies to exploit these rules and employment mandates. These firms have won work with the support of large Big Build contractors and the CFMEU.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Premier Jacinta Allan at the North East Link project in June.Credit: Justin McManus

The leaked complaints reveal that genuine Indigenous firms with no organised crime links have lodged multiple official complaints about these systemic issues.

In November 2022, First Nations Traffic Management (FNTM) began lodging formal complaints with officials from the North East Link, escalating the firm’s concerns in emails to Allan in 2024.

The complaints from First Nations allege the CFMEU colluded with major contractors to favour union-backed companies on the Big Build while “boycotting” and “black-banning” other Indigenous firms who weren’t prepared to act corruptly.

“With the recent media exposure of the corruption in the CFMEU is there any opportunity that First Nations Traffic Management’s issues raised over two years ago could finally be addressed?” a complaint sent in July last says.

Two days later, First Nations emailed a North East Link executive about allegations “brought to your attention over 2 years ago” involving “boycotting behaviour which has been clearly displayed on the ‘North-East Link Project’ (NELP)”.

“The real reason FNTM were refused work was due to our blatant non-compliance with an abhorrent (and illegal) request to ‘pay’ bribes, as a means of initiating discussions with the CFMEU for an EBA,” the email to the executive states.

The person allegedly demanding bribes is understood to be a third party with connections to company managers and senior union officials.

The executive’s response to First Nations Traffic Management confirms the receipt of “very serious allegations in your emails” and suggests a meeting to discuss the concerns.

“Given the seriousness of the allegations you have raised in your emails, there are other avenues that I would encourage you to consider in addition to meeting with us,” the executive states. “I urge you to report known or suspected instances of criminal conduct on MRPV [Major Road Projects Victoria] projects to Victoria Police.”

Victorian Assistant Treasurer Danny Pearson.Credit: Gus McCubbing

Leaked correspondence also reveals that Infrastructure Minister Danny Pearson responded on behalf of the premier, encouraging First Nations Traffic Management to “report your concerns to appropriate authorities”.

In response to Pearson’s letter, First Nations advised the minister that the company had already complained to multiple agencies and been told investigations would take months.

It is not the first time the premier has been told in writing by Indigenous subcontractors of possibly unlawful behaviour on the Big Build.

The complaints to Allan led to no action until they were revealed publicly in the Building Bad series and police responded, laying threat-to-kill charges against a still-serving CFMEU organiser, Joel Shackleton.

The wider issues involving social procurement have been the subject of no known official inquiry.

A third Indigenous Big Build subcontractor has also lodged formal complaints with authorities of unlawful behaviour on the major Labor projects, this time with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Complaint paperwork obtained by this masthead reveals that Indigenous firm NLA Trucking has accused a fellow Big Build contractor of agreeing to unlawful demands made by the CFMEU’s Shackleton and boycotting it from the $530 million state-funded Mordialloc station project.

“The union have their foot on our throat, they’re threatening to kick us off North East Link,” the subcontractor allegedly told NLA Trucking, according to the complaint statement.

With Kieran Rooney