Sticking with Jacinta Allan’s testy press conference, the Victorian Premier would not say whether her government would give the state’s corruption watchdog “follow the dollar” powers.
The Victorian Greens will this week release draft laws that would give the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) such powers, to pursue investigations into the use of taxpayer funds when they trickle down to private subcontractors.
IBAC has asked for these powers and a parliamentary inquiry has recommended it be given them.
The construction industry is one of the biggest sectors to use subcontracting and labour hire arrangements, where much of the graft on taxpayer-funded projects has been identified.
Allan said she had no announcements to make today on whether her government would give IBAC the follow-the-dollar powers.
Half a dozen Labor MPs from the western suburbs were joining the premier and Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas at the new Footscray Hospital, which opens on Wednesday.
Backbench MP Luba Grigorovitch, formerly Rail, Tram & Bus Union secretary, was asked whether she regretted standing by former CFMEU state secretary John Setka.
“Look, the allegations that have been made are serious. They truly are. They are disgusting, and as the premier has said, they’re completely unacceptable,” Grigorovitch said.
She said she was “not going to back away” from the fact the pair were close while they were both union secretaries, but added that she had not spoken to Setka in “quite a while”. “I’ve just had two babies, I’m not exactly sure on my last phone calls.”
The premier again dismissed an estimate that $15 billion had been lost to corruption on its Big Build program of work and continued to rebuff calls for a royal commission to test the figure, which was estimated by Geoffrey Watson, SC, and backed by Murray Furlong of the Fair Work Commission. The estimate was described as untested by CFMEU administrator Mark Irving.
“Those claims have been dismissed,” Allan claimed.
She would not say how much taxpayer money lost to corruption on the Big Build would warrant action.
Click here to read more from Kieran Rooney, Nick McKenzie and Rachel Eddie.
Read the full article here
