Victoria Police has rejected Jacinta Allan’s claim the state’s top officer was to blame for her misleading comment about a fresh crackdown on the CFMEU, which opened a new rift between the premier and the acting commissioner just weeks after the government pushed out his predecessor.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Allan denied she lied to reporters a day earlier when she announced that police Operation Hawk had been established to respond to reports alleging gangland figures and bikies with links to the union were receiving payments from companies on state projects.