Victorian Labor collected thousands of dollars in donations from firms that now face police action over suspected corrupt payments or that placed gangland, bikie or CFMEU identities on taxpayer-funded projects.
The donors include a traffic management firm on Labor’s signature $100 billion Big Build program whose owner has been charged by Victoria Police’s anti-corruption and gangland building industry taskforce; another Big Build subcontractor facing a federal police probe for allegedly bribing a corrupt CFMEU boss; and the owners of two Big Build firms represented by gangland figure Mick Gatto.
The revelation of the political money trail from Big Build subcontractors with gangland links, or which are the subject of law enforcement probes, to Labor is a fresh crisis for the government.
Premier Jacinta Allan is already under mounting pressure over her refusal to back a sweeping inquiry into claims Labor turned a blind eye to wrongdoing on its signature infrastructure projects while she was the responsible minister.
The donations uncovered by this masthead would not be caught under Allan’s CFMEU donations ban – introduced in response to this masthead’s Building Bad series in mid-2024 – because they come from companies and not the CFMEU.
They would almost certainly have been uncovered by the broad-style inquiry that the state and federal opposition, along with anti-corruption advocates such as Transparency International, have demanded.
The Victorian Election Commission, corporate and other records analysed by this masthead reveal the individual CFMEU-aligned building company donors who contributed to Labor’s election campaign in 2022.
The donations came as the union’s grip over the Labor government’s Big Build scheme solidified, creating huge profit-making opportunities for some of these donors because the CFMEU was pushing them onto contractors.
They include traffic management company B K Labour, a firm that had made tens of millions of dollars supplying workers to the Big Build. B K’s founder and owner, Bernard Kearney, was charged by the police Taskforce Hawk in December with fraud linked to allegedly fake Big Build invoices.
At the time of his arrest, police said the firm was being probed over alleged “corrupt payments” and that detectives would allege invoices were falsified. Police also said they were “investigating a number of other payments and cash withdrawals” as part of an operation to specifically target criminal behaviour linked to the construction industry.
Donation records reveal B K Labour donated at least $3264 to Victorian Labor in May 2022. In his landmark report last week, corruption buster Geoffrey Watson, SC, said B K Labour was forced into the Big Build by ex-union boss Joe Myles, who warned “contractors to use B K Labour or they would suffer industrial action”.
B K Labour was contacted for comment.
Donations records show another election-year ALP donor, giving $3264, was Anthony Ciccone, the owner of Cycon Civil and labour hire firm Project Labour Solutions (PLS).
Last August, Ciccone engaged Gatto to help resolve a dispute involving his Big Build operations. Gatto has also supported PLS, which Ciccone co-owns and which employs the wife of ex-union boss Derek Christopher (Watson described Christopher as corrupt in his report).
In Watson’s report, Cycon is identified as employing a union delegate with possible Comancheros connections.
Ciccone’s Big Build business also has a business partnership with a firm run by an ex-Finks bikie Tom Estcourt, who recently faced court and received a good behaviour bond after Taskforce Hawk found him possessing anabolic steroids.
Ciccone said on Monday that he had no recollection of the donation, that he had never donated to Labor and couldn’t comment on “what he didn’t know”.
A third donor, Big Build labour hire firm CCL, is listed as giving state Labor $3264 in official records, and is named in the recent Watson report as a firm that hired notorious bikie gang identities on government projects.
Watson said CCL agreed to hire ex-Bandidos boss Johnny “Two Guns” Walker as a CFMEU health and safety representative “even while he was still serving his manslaughter sentence”.
“On 8 June 2022 [now ex-CFMEU boss] Elias Spernovasilis wrote to the Adult Parole Board advising that Walker would be employed by CCL Labour,” Watson’s report stated. “Spernovasilis told the board that the CFMEU was aware of Walker’s manslaughter conviction and that Walker’s ‘direct manager’ would be… a CFMEU organiser with close connections to Joe Myles.”
Watson described Spernovasilis as corrupt in his report.
A fourth donor, who is listed in electoral commission records as donating $5488 to Victorian Labor in 2022, owns a Big Build business that is caught up in two ongoing federal police probes into allegations it bribed corrupt ex-union boss John Perkovic and made suspect payments to another police target. This masthead is not naming that firm for legal reasons.
A fifth donor, which provided Labor $3550, is a CFMEU-aligned company run by businessman Stan Papayianneris. Papayianneris was previously a business partner of Jadran Delic, a man described in the Watson report as a “connected underworld figure” and “a close friend”, and likely business partner, of disgraced former union boss John Setka.
Papayianneris was not named in Watson’s report as being involved in issues facing the union and he is not accused of wrongdoing.
Papayianneris told this masthead he was a Labor Party supporter but it would be inappropriate to comment further.
In addition to these five campaign contributors, this masthead has identified at least two other donors with close ties to the CFMEU and Big Build that funded the ALP’s 2022 election campaign.
A Victorian Labor spokesperson said the donations were made years prior to the allegations that have now been aired and complied with legal requirements.
“Victorian Labor cannot accept donations from the CFMEU and has a robust process for reviewing all donations.”
The donations uncovered by this masthead likely represent a fraction of the funds given by Big Build firms with links to suspected improper behaviour or gangland figures because many of them made donations directly to the CFMEU, which in turn gave the ALP more than $500,000 heading into the November 2022 election.
The CFMEU has never revealed which building firms contributed to its election war chest, although multiple Big Build and union sources said a union faction including bikie boss Joel Leavett and ex-union boss Myles pressured firms to donate to the union.
Among those firms which contributed to the CFMEU’s revenue streams as union sponsors or advertisers are Mongols bikie club-linked firm Solid Seal and MC Labour, which Watson identified as a “dubious” Big Build firm with extensive bikie links involvement in “ghost worker” scams on Labor government projects.
On Monday, Victoria’s corruption watchdog revealed it did not investigate a referral from Premier Jacinta Allan concerning allegations of organised crime and graft on taxpayer-funded projects because it was outside its remit.
Allan’s mid-2024 referral was detailed in a letter to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission released on Sunday noting allegations of organised crime and behaviour to favour CFMEU-linked firms.
IBAC does not typically comment on its referrals but, because the letter was released publicly, confirmed the matters in Allan’s letter were outside its scope.
IBAC said it was still considering a referral received last week from Opposition Leader Jess Wilson and shadow attorney-general James Newbury.
“We’ll be using the parliament this week to put the pressure on the government to support establishing a royal commission,” Wilson said.
Watson, speaking in his role as director for the Centre of Public Integrity, said it was surprising Allan did not know her referral could not be investigated, because the current government had made changes to IBAC’s powers that changed its authority to investigate.
He said there was a very high threshold for investigation and there needed to be a public official involved in misconduct, meaning failure to supervise contracts didn’t come under its remit.
The Victorian Greens will this week release draft laws that would give the state’s corruption watchdog “follow the dollar” powers to pursue investigations into the use of taxpayer funds when they trickle down to subcontractors.
IBAC has asked for these powers. The construction industry is one of the biggest sectors for the use of subcontracting and labour hire arrangements, where much of the graft on taxpayer projects has been identified.
The Greens’ proposals this week would also implement recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry handed down last year, including giving IBAC the power to investigate corrupt conduct and private subcontractors connected to government funding.
Other changes would authorise disclosure of certain IBAC information, allow more public hearings and provide the power to investigate “grey corruption” that does not meet the high threshold for corruption under the current laws.
Greens leader Ellen Sandell said billions of dollars had been handed to private companies and subcontractors but IBAC doesn’t have the power to pursue this money and this was a major gap in its abilities.
“This level of corruption on Labor’s major construction projects in Victoria is astounding,” she said.
Police Minister Anthony Carbines on Monday pointed to last week’s arrests by Taskforce Hawk as progress.
“It’s a demonstration that police take those matters seriously. They’re taking action and holding people to account,” he said.
“It does require people to step forward, provide statements, to be witnesses, to assist Victoria Police in their investigations.”
Carbines referred back to Allan’s comments when asked why the government didn’t support a royal commission into the sector, but he said his role as police minister was to give Taskforce Hawk the resources it needed.
”The chief commissioner has been very clear that organised crime is a priority for him because it is embedded in so much of the community,” he said. “He’s particularly elevated Victoria Police response to organised crime across the board.”
In a separate development, Mick Gatto on Monday night sought to dismiss Watson’s report in an interview with Channel Ten, claiming he was a “million per cent adamant” that the Big Build, government and union movement had never paid “one penny” to him.
However, records seen by this masthead reveal that front companies linked to Gatto, and which are under federal police investigation, received multiple payments from Big Build contractors including LTE and Rangedale.
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Nick McKenzie is an Age investigative journalist who has three times been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 20 Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs and criminal justice.Connect via email.