Brad Battin: ‘Can you believe that it’s only taken 27 days for the Premier to throw the new Chief Commissioner under the bus?’

Jacinta Allan is under fire for trying to shift blame to acting police chief Rick Nugent after criticism she misled Victorians by claiming police dedicated new resources to stamp out workplace crime.

Jacinta Allan has been accused of throwing acting police chief Rick Nugent under the bus just a day after she attempted to unveil a brand new taskforce to investigate corruption within the CFMEU.

The Premier on Monday announced Operation Hawk had been established following fresh allegations of criminal behaviour on taxpayer-funded Big Build construction sites.

Ms Allan said she supported the actions of police to “immediately establish” Operation Hawk, but hours after that statement, Victoria Police was forced to concede that Operation Hawk wasn’t a new investigation, and had in fact been running for the past nine months.

Instead, Victoria Police said the operation had been “newly-expanded”.

Jacinta Allan has been accused of throwing acting police chief Rick Nugent under the bus. Picture: Anthony Lucas

On Tuesday, Ms Allan faced a barrage of questions about whether she had deliberately misled Victorians by claiming that police had dedicated new resources to stamp out workplace crime.

“The advice I was given and announced yesterday was the advice I was given from the acting Chief Commissioner from Victoria Police,” she said.

Asked if Mr Nugent had misled her, Ms Allan said: “I made those statements yesterday (on Monday) on the advice of Victoria Police.”

“I thank the acting Chief Commissioner for moving quickly yesterday to add additional resources to this priority area,” she added.

Ms Allan referred other questions to Victoria Police about the ability of Operation Hawk to properly respond to allegations of criminal conduct on building sites.

“I’d refer you to Victoria Police because I respect the operational independence of Victoria Police,” she said.

Opposition Leader Brad Battin said the government needed to get its facts straight before making big announcements.

“Can you believe that it’s only taken 27 days for the Premier to throw the new Chief Commissioner under the bus?” he said.

“She was more than happy to try and act tough in front of the cameras yesterday … but then today when she gets caught out she ends up turning into like a jellyfish and not being able to comment at all.”

It follows fresh footage, aired by 60 Minutes, that showed a woman being bashed allegedly by a man with links to bikies while on his lunch break at a taxpayer-funded construction site.

Ms Allan on Monday said she had “absolutely zero tolerance” for the behaviour that had been exposed.

“All workers deserve the right to a safe workplace and I was absolutely sickened to my core to see that footage of an allegation of a woman being assaulted and the experience of other women on worksites here in Victoria,” she said.

Allegations that bikies and underworld figures had infiltrated the state’s Big Build sites were first revealed in July last year, forcing Ms Allan to order a review into the “rotten culture”.

The review was carried out by former TAC and CFA chair Greg Wilson, who handed his final report to the government in December.

In response, the Victorian government announced it would overhaul the state’s labour hire rules and set up an independent complaint pathway for whistleblowers to report allegations of corruption, harassment and intimidation.

Industrial Relations Minister Jaclyn Symes this week said legislation to establish a complaints agency was being developed.

“Legislation is imminent, (it is) not in the parliament this week but you’ll see it very soon,” she said.