July 2, 2026 — 7:30pmThere is growing support among Labor MPs for the Victorian government to establish a royal commission into Big Build corruption to take control of an electorally destructive issue and protect the union movement from a future inquiry ordered by their political opponents.Labor ministers, backbenchers and candidates from across the party’s factional divide have told this masthead that if this government does not establish a royal commission, the next one will, with potentially disastrous consequences for Labor’s legacy, the broader union movement and workers in the building trades.Momentum is growing for a royal commission on Big Build corruption within the Allan government.Aresna VillanuevaThe Labor figures spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail internal deliberations in a week dominated by revelations that the government directed contractors to pay up $200 million to cover Metro Tunnel cost blowouts caused by union-backed staffing rules, that Mick Gatto was still cashing on the Big Build pipeline, and that police charged with cleaning up the sector needed new powers.“Everyone is sensitive to union concerns about a royal commission being a witch hunt,” one MP said. “If it is a Liberal royal commission, it absolutely will be.”Another said the choice confronting the party was clear.“Do we want a royal commission that is done by One Nation and the Liberal Party which will be exclusively about unions and there to bankrupt them, or does the broader labour movement want a royal commission into a sector which is obviously full of corruption?“There is going to be a royal commission, that is one thing for sure. It is just who determines its focus.”However, despite being increasingly pessimistic about November’s state election and frustrated by the government’s response to the Building Bad scandal, the caucus is also convinced that Premier Jacinta Allan is not for turning on the issue.Allan has repeatedly dismissed calls for a royal commission, arguing that the record of past inquiries showed it would take too long and not get to the bottom of the problems plaguing the construction industry.This has led to a flurry of proposed new legislative and regulatory fixes, formulated by a loose coalition of Labor MPs, to add to steps already taken by the government. These include draft legislation to ban the use of labour-hire workers on Big Build sites, black-balling of companies found to have provided financial benefits to underworld figures, and mandatory Australian Federal Police checks on workers.One of the most radical proposals being circulated in caucus is to terminate all existing CFMEU enterprise agreements on government projects while preserving current wages and conditions.Allan has defended her government’s response, which so far includes providing greater powers for police and the Labour Hire Authority and more recently, legislating to give IBAC a broader jurisdiction and, from the end of next year, retrospective follow-the-money powers.Leaders of the police taskforce established to tackle Big Build corruption told this masthead this week that they did not have adequate powers to combat wrongdoing in the sector. Faced with their call for legislative change, Allan insisted once again that she was confident in Victoria Police’s existing powers, saying she did not understand why anyone with evidence would not report that to the force.As the push for a royal commission builds within Labor’s parliamentary ranks before a two-day caucus retreat on July 20 and 21, Allan issued a personal apology for the criminal infiltration of some Big Build construction sites and the violence, intimidation and lawlessness, which this masthead has documented for the past two years.“I’m deeply sorry that it happened on projects funded by the Victorian people,” the premier writes today in an exclusive column commissioned by The Age. “Now the question is how we stop it happening again.”Opposition Leader Jess Wilson, also writing for this masthead, said the first step needed to be a royal commission. “Labor is standing in the way of the reform needed to put a stop to this scandal,” she said.The developments came as Electrical Trades Union state secretary Troy Gray, one of Allan’s strongest industrial backers, defended the lucrative role played by underworld figure Mick Gatto as a mediator between labour hire companies and construction unions on Big Build sites.Gray is a spokesperson for the Building Industry Group of Unions (BIG), which this week met to discuss the deepening scandal and flatly rejected as “political theatre” calls for a royal commission that were boosted by former Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission boss Robert Redlich and ex-Victorian ombudsman Deborah Glass.Mick Gatto leaving his home on June 3 after being interviewed by police from Taskforce Hawk.Joe Armao“We don’t engage the mediators or work out what they get paid, but I can tell you now that the ETU and BIG have never had any issues with Mick Gatto,” Gray said.“We don’t need to spend another hundred million dollars finding out that construction companies have engaged Mick as a mediator in the Victorian construction industry for more than 30 years. You can save your money. Ring me, and I’ll tell you.”Allan is a second-generation member of the ETU and one of Gray’s strongest allies in parliament. Gray said that despite this relationship, Allan had not sought his views on the question of a royal commission. “No one is kicking my door down to ask the BIG to tick off on a royal commission,” he said. “Everyone has got my phone number. It isn’t happening.”An MP said the ETU had made it views well known and was a significant impediment to the premier being able to shift her position. “The ball is entirely within the ETU’s court,” they said. “They seem to be the big hold-up.”Premier Jacinta Allan has repeatedly dismissed calls for a royal commission.Luis AscuiThe Building Industry Group of Unions is also led by Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union secretary Tony Mavromatis and Plumbing and Pipe Trades Employees Union secretary Earl Setches, who earlier this year was filmed dining with Gatto and firefighters union chief Peter Marshall on controversial football figure Sam Newman’s yacht.Setches said there had been two royal commissions over the past 20 years into trade unions and the construction industry, and another one would produce “nothing more than a conga line of lawyers”.The BIG group commissioned a report by RMIT emeritus professor of public policy and the social economy David Hayward to refute one of the most damaging claims from the Building Bad scandal – that criminal involvement and corruption had added $15 billion, or 15 per cent, to the cost of the government’s $100 billion major infrastructure program.Hayward urged the $15 billion figure – an estimate provided by corruption-busting barrister Geoffrey Watson, SC, in the extensive work he did for CFMEU administrators – to be treated with scepticism and concluded, relying largely on published auditor-general’s reports, that the main cause of cost overruns on Big Build projects was “changes in scope and technical complexities”.Allan continues to attack this figure as wrong, even after this masthead revealed the government’s infrastructure tsar was a co-director on a high-level board that estimated CFMEU lawlessness and criminality had caused cost blowouts of up to 30 per cent on taxpayer-funded projects. That assessment was also supported by Fair Work Commission general manager Murray Furlong.The MPs and candidates said the impact of the latest revelations was being felt by MPs as they door-knocked constituents.“There have been hours of footage of the premier, being defensive about it, to the point that people now think we were in on the giggle, that we are the corrupt ones,” one said. “That is way they speak to us about it.”Not all MPs are convinced that calling a royal commission would help address this public sentiment. One expressed scepticism that the government would benefit from taking a step that it had long argued against.“I see the merit in it. I just don’t think it meets the test,” the MP said. “This is not a viable option for the Victorian Labor government.”The government’s dilemma in whether to call a royal commission reflects the labour movement’s long-standing antagonism towards any inquiries focused on union malfeasance.The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption established by the Abbott government in 2014 was dismissed by Labor as a politically motivated exercise that ran up $46 million in legal costs and few criminal convictions.The inquiry, which tabled its final report in the first year of the Andrews government, found a widespread culture of lawlessness within construction unions and documented allegations of bribery, extortion and blackmail.Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.From our partners