Premier’s ‘new’ Operation Hawk union crackdown already exists, say police

A new police investigation codenamed Operation Hawk will be immediately established to probe “shocking and unacceptable” allegations of criminal activity at taxpayer-funded construction sites, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced on Monday.

Within hours of the announcement, Victoria Police confirmed that Operation Hawk was not new and had been running for the previous nine months, after this masthead exposed the infiltration of the CFMEU construction union by organised crime figures.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan making the announcement on Monday.Credit: Penny Stephens

Allan said police made the decision after she met acting Commissioner Rick Nugent on Monday morning to discuss the latest revelations, which aired the previous night in a joint investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes.

“What we saw last night, with further revelations and information, was again shocking and completely unacceptable, which is why this morning I met with the acting Chief Commissioner of Police, and it is why I support the actions that the Victoria Police are taking to immediately establish Operation Hawk,” Allan said.

“I thank the acting chief commissioner for moving swiftly to establish this operation and devote resources to this critically important task.”

Two senior police sources with knowledge of Operation Hawk, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the investigation has been running since July under the direction of the police assistant commissioner in charge of Crime Command, Martin O’Brien.

A Victoria Police spokesperson said that following the latest allegations, the operation had been given additional resources to investigate blackmail, extortion, assaults and threats to life and property related to the construction industry.

A continuation of The Age’s Building Bad series, the fresh media investigation included allegations that gangland-linked figures, including bikies, were receiving large payments from companies on publicly funded projects looking to gain favour with figures within the CFMEU.

Bank and financial records reveal payments continued, even after state and federal governments promised last year to stamp out bad behaviour in the nation’s construction sector by forcing the construction division of the CFMEU into administration and committing to sweeping reforms and inquiries.

Allan said she was briefed on multiple investigations that began after the Building Bad media investigation was first published in July last year.

The premier said she was “sickened to my core” on viewing footage that showed an alleged assault of a woman on a worksite and to hear experiences of other women who detailed being harassed and black-banned from projects.

“I just want to say clearly to those women who have been impacted, this is wrong. This is not right, and my thoughts are with those women who have had these awful, devastating experiences,” she said.

The government pledged to immediately implement two recommendations from ex-public servant Greg Wilson’s state review into the troubled construction sector.

They included a complaints process for whistleblowers and strengthening of the work between federal and state agencies.

However, state Industrial Relations Minister Jaclyn Symes said laws creating the complaints body, known as the workforce inspectorate, would not come before the parliament this week.

“It has been under development since we received the report, and it requires legislation to set up the workforce inspectorate, and that is imminent.”

The inspectorate will have a special focus on women’s safety, Symes said.

Allan defended the Wilson review despite criticism from Geoffrey Watson, SC – the barrister appointed by the CFMEU administrator to probe wrongdoing – that the Wilson investigation was so poorly established that it amounted to a “cover up” because “it didn’t get to the bottom of anything”. Watson also stressed he was not accusing Wilson of wrongdoing but said his concern lay with the failure of the Allan government to ensure his inquiry adequately probed Big Build wrongdoing.

“I disagree. We moved quickly last year with a zero-tolerance approach to this bullying … and allegations of illegal behaviour,” Allan said.

“It is why, among a range of actions, we referred these allegations to IBAC, to Victoria Police, to the independent agencies who have the authority and the power to investigate … anyone with any information that goes to illegal behaviour in this state has a responsibility to refer that information to those agencies.”

The Victorian opposition has renewed calls for a royal commission into the state branch of the CFMEU, and will on Tuesday move a non-binding motion through the upper house.

Asked what could be done to take action now, Opposition Leader Brad Battin said the government should be kicking alleged bikies off its Big Build worksites.

“This isn’t just incompetence – it’s complicity. Labor has created a system that protects their mates while turning a blind eye to corruption and criminal infiltration on Victoria’s biggest infrastructure projects,” Battin said.

Opposition spokesman for major projects, Evan Mulholland, said the Allan government’s review by Greg Wilson was a “wet lettuce approach” and that Allan had sat on its recommendations for months.

“It was a pathetic approach, and we know now that it was a cover-up,” Mulholland said.

Allan said a federal royal commission into the building and construction sector had delivered “very little”.

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