Treasurer Jim Chalmers has backed the Big Build royal commission ordered by new Victorian Premier Ben Carroll, the same inquiry Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has repeatedly and publicly rejected. The Treasurer's praise, delivered on Wednesday, puts the two most senior figures in the federal government on opposite sides of the biggest corruption inquiry in the country.
The split comes barely 48 hours after Jacinta Allan resigned and Carroll was endorsed unopposed as Premier, and it leaves Albanese as the most senior Labor figure still defending the position that helped end her premiership.
Chalmers calls it decisive. Albanese said the last one achieved nothing
"I think Ben Carroll will be an outstanding premier. He is pragmatic. He is decisive… and I think you could see that decisiveness when it came to the announcement of the Royal Commission," Chalmers told reporters on Wednesday.
"The reason why we support that is because it's consistent with our zero tolerance at the federal level for corruption."
Chalmers went further, claiming the royal commission was consistent with the approach the Albanese government has taken since the Big Build corruption scandal broke in 2024, citing "the steps that we've taken to crack down, for example, on the CFMEU" and Infrastructure Minister Catherine King's work "making sure that we get value for money when it comes to government-supported projects".
That isn't what his Prime Minister has been saying. Asked in February whether he'd support a royal commission into union corruption, Albanese dismissed the idea using the same language Allan had used for two years.
"Look, the last time, you know what it was, it was a Royal Commission into Bill Shorten and Julia Gillard," he said, referring to the 2014 trade union royal commission. "It cost a lot of money, achieved nothing, and no action was taken on the CFMEU."
When it was put to him that multiple corruption experts backed the calls, he doubled down. "What action came out of that Royal Commission to clamp down on activities of the CFMEU that were occurring at that time? The evidence is very clear about that. And indeed, while the Royal Commission was going on, John Setka and these elements were increasing their influence, not decreasing it."
Albanese said Jacinta Allan had it right. Her own party dumped her over it
Albanese backed Allan's refusal to hold an inquiry, saying Victorian authorities were "doing their job" in the context of the CFMEU administrator "being established and being allowed to do his job".
Allan's position didn't survive her. Two years of resistance to a royal commission as the scandal grew was one of the pressures that ended her leadership. Carroll ordered the royal commission within an hour of being sworn in.
The new Premier has promised "exhaustive terms of reference". "No stones left unturned, whether it is top-tier contractors, subcontractors, labour hire, government, unions," he said. Under attack in question time on Wednesday, he told the opposition "that era is over".
It was widely noted in Labor circles that Carroll handed the work to his own Department of Premier and Cabinet rather than to Attorney General Sonya Kilkenny, the Allan loyalist who briefly challenged him for the leadership.
Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan face being called before the inquiry
Labor figures close to Carroll told The Australian that the former premiers and the ministers who ran the Big Build would not be shielded from the probe. "This can't just focus on the CFMEU," one party source said. "It must also cover the political settings that allowed it (corruption) to take root and grow."
Senior Labor sources said they expect the ministers responsible for the Big Build, including Allan, to appear. That raises the prospect of both former premiers, Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan, being questioned in public hearings about what they knew of alleged corrupt activity on projects including the Metro Tunnel, the West Gate Tunnel, the Suburban Rail Loop and the level crossing removals.
The scandal centres on allegations that organised crime figures and bikie gangs infiltrated major infrastructure projects through the CFMEU. Barrister Geoffrey Watson SC has estimated the cost to taxpayers at $15 billion. One News has previously reported on the death threats and "CFMEU tax" driving tradies to One Nation, and on whistleblower claims that the union got a builder removed from a $320 million hospital job.
Andrews issued a rare public statement on Wednesday, lauding Carroll as a "great campaigner".
Who is in the frame and what investigators will be looking at
The terms of reference aren't settled yet. They go to Carroll's first cabinet meeting, and he's promised they'll be "exhaustive". What is already clear is the five groups he named, and the allegations already sitting against each of them.
| Who is in the frame | What investigators will be looking at |
|---|---|
| The CFMEU | Alleged infiltration of Big Build sites by bikie gangs and organised crime figures, with claims of extortion and violence. The union was placed in administration in 2024 after the scandal broke. |
| Top tier contractors and subcontractors | Claims that bribery and standover tactics inflated project costs, which barrister Geoffrey Watson SC estimates has cost taxpayers $15 billion. |
| Labour hire firms | What the Watson report calls "the single worst source of corruption in the Victorian building sector": a $1 billion a year industry with alleged ghost shifts, nepotism in hiring and claims of payments flowing to gangland figures. |
| Government: ministers, staffers and public servants | The "political settings" that let the alleged corruption take root, in the words of one Labor source. Senior Labor figures expect the ministers who ran the Big Build, including both former premiers, to be called. |
| Unions beyond the CFMEU | Carroll's stated scope covers unions generally, not just the CFMEU, though no other union has been named. |
The projects in scope reach across the whole Big Build program: the Metro Tunnel, the West Gate Tunnel, the Suburban Rail Loop and the level crossing removals. Several are federally funded and involve national construction companies, which is exactly why the inquiry lands on Albanese's desk too.
The problems already on the record:
- A cost to taxpayers put at $15 billion by barrister Geoffrey Watson SC, who took industry estimates of CFMEU linked blowouts of 10% to 30% and settled on 15% of the roughly $100 billion program.
- The CFMEU has been under a court appointed administrator since 2024, the fix Albanese says makes a royal commission unnecessary.
- A whistleblower's claim, previously reported by One News, that the union got a builder removed from a $320 million hospital job.
- Tradies telling a Queensland inquiry about death threats and a "CFMEU tax", coverage that drove some to One Nation. That inquiry is still hearing daily evidence about alleged undue influence in tendering.
- An ACT Integrity Commission finding that two senior public servants, one of them the chief of staff to minister Yvette Berry, acted corruptly over an $18 million school tender favouring the CFMEU. Berry resigned as education minister last week.
- IBAC's own admission that it can't follow public money into subcontractors, and can't act at all unless the conduct amounts to a criminal offence.
Inside the Watson report: ghost shifts, a billion dollar labour hire racket and a "crime syndicate"
The royal commission won't be starting from scratch. The evidence base already exists in Geoffrey Watson SC's 139 page report for the CFMEU administrator, titled Rotting from the Top, which you can download in full further below. Watson, a lifelong supporter of trade unions, finished the investigation "with the empty feeling that the Setka-led Victorian branch of the CFMEU was no longer a trade union, it was a crime syndicate".
One of the factors Watson says "wrecked" the union lands squarely on government: "the governmental inaction on the CFMEU". That inaction had a price. Since 2003 the CFMEU, its officials and members have been convicted of more than 2,600 offences and fined over $28 million, and Watson's verdict on the decade to 2024 is blunt: "it got worse, not better".
The ghost shifts show why nothing short of a royal commission stuck. Workers were signed in for shifts they never worked, and when the practice was exposed as a multi million dollar fraud in May 2023, then premier Daniel Andrews declared "zero tolerance" for ghosting. Watson records what happened next: "The problem was, it happened again. And again and again." Zero tolerance is the same phrase Chalmers reached for on Wednesday.
Carroll has committed to a special prosecutor alongside the commission, The Age reported, letting evidence feed criminal prosecutions in real time. The Age has separately reported that 11 of Victoria's biggest infrastructure projects, all receiving federal funds, face 56 active allegations of fraud, corruption, theft and criminal behaviour. Federal money, national builders, and a Prime Minister who says no further inquiry is needed.
Jess Wilson calls it a sham. Tim Wilson wants Albanese to face one too
Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson, who has pledged her own royal commission if she wins the 28 November election, said she suspected Labor's version would be a "sham". "We know that Labor MPs want this set up so they can control the terms of reference," she said. "They're worried about what it is going to expose."
Ms Wilson said Allan "must be called to give evidence" as "the architect of the Big Build as the minister, and then as the premier". Victorian Shadow Police Minister Brad Battin told News24 the timing of the announcement was "because of polling".
Federally, opposition Treasury spokesman Tim Wilson called on Albanese to follow Carroll's lead. "I think it's time we had a royal commission, a federal royal commission, into CFMEU corruption, not just one in Victoria," he said.
"The Prime Minister should call one. He should follow the lead of Ben Carroll because federal Labor is just as much caught up in CFMEU corruption as the state government through projects like the Suburban Rail Loop."
There's a precedent that will sting. As The Australian's analysis notes, after the Bondi terror shootings last December it was NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns who moved first on a royal commission while Albanese baulked, and public pressure eventually pushed the Prime Minister into calling a national inquiry that absorbed the state one.
The CFMEU problem isn't confined to Victoria either, with inquiries running in Queensland and corrupt conduct findings in the ACT, as set out above.
IBAC tells Ben Carroll new powers alone won't cut it
Victoria's anti corruption watchdog is already pushing the new Premier for more. IBAC Commissioner Victoria Elliott wrote to Carroll on Wednesday warning that the promised "follow the dollar" powers won't work on their own.
"For 'follow the dollar' powers to be effective, other key legislative changes must be implemented alongside it including removing the requirement that corrupt conduct constitute a criminal offence, updating the definitions of 'public officer' and 'public body' to include subcontractors on public projects, and clarifying the offence of misconduct in public office," Ms Elliott said.
She also repeated her call for a funding boost, something both Andrews and Allan refused. Without the extra laws and money, she warned, IBAC risks identifying concerning conduct involving public funds "but that it remains outside of our jurisdiction", leaving the agency unable to investigate and expose it.
Victoria votes on 28 November. Until then, the Treasurer and the Prime Minister of Australia are on the record on opposite sides of the same royal commission.
