Victoria Launches Sweeping Royal Commission Into Construction Industry Corruption
Victorian premier Ben Carroll released the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into the Integrity of Major Public and Civil Infrastructure Construction Projects in Victoria on 20 August 2026, after the Governor of Victoria signed the letters patent formally establishing the inquiry the same day. Chris Kourakis, former chief justice of South Australia, was appointed commissioner. The commission received a $50 million budget and a reporting deadline of 20 August 2027.
The inquiry's scope is expansive. Under the terms of reference, the commission will investigate the extent to which corruption, criminal conduct or serious misconduct occurred on major Victorian projects by the CFMEU, construction companies, subcontractors, labour hire firms and others. It will also examine whether Victorian government departments and project delivery agencies adequately adhered to their responsibilities in overseeing those projects. Additionally, the inquiry will consider whether measures could be taken to recoup taxpayer funds misappropriated or received as a result of corruption, criminal conduct or serious misconduct. Carroll described the terms of reference as "exhaustive," allowing the commission to examine matters beyond allegations of corruption, and said the royal commission would have "the broadest, most extensive powers with nothing off limits" (The Guardian).
Carroll acknowledged there had been "grift, thuggery, misogyny and violence on taxpayer-funded construction sites." He said the inquiry followed allegations of wrongdoing by the CFMEU and others connected to the Big Build that were first reported by Nine newspapers in 2024 (The Guardian). The Premier's office statement said the terms of reference are broad and expansive, covering the conduct of the CFMEU, construction companies and labour hire firms (Premier of Victoria).
Commissioner Kourakis was granted coercive powers to compel the production of information, including cabinet documents, and the attendance of witnesses. Coercive powers mean the commission can legally require people and organisations to hand over evidence or testify, even if they would prefer not to. The reach into cabinet material is notable. Cabinet documents, the internal records of government deliberations, are typically shielded by convention and, in some jurisdictions, statutory privilege. Granting a royal commission coercive authority over them signals that no tier of government decision-making is quarantined from scrutiny.
The terms of reference place the determination of whose actions and knowledge are relevant squarely with the commissioner. Carroll confirmed that premiers, former premiers, ministers, former ministers, senior officials, union leaders and company executives could all be called. He also confirmed that legal representation of former premiers and former ministers called before the commission will be publicly funded, which he described as standard procedure (The Guardian).
One boundary is explicit: lawful, legitimate and appropriate actions taken under industrial relations and occupational health and safety laws fall outside the commission's scope. The commission may, however, examine whether those laws were misused. That carve-out matters. It separates protected union activity, including lawful bargaining and safety advocacy, from conduct the inquiry is tasked with investigating, though the line between legitimate use and misuse of such laws will likely be contested terrain during hearings.
The political stakes are immediate. Shadow attorney general James Newbury called on Carroll to guarantee that former premier Jacinta Allan and former premier Daniel Andrews would be brought before the commission prior to the November election. Carroll has not offered such a guarantee; the terms of reference leave witness decisions to the commissioner's discretion, not the government's. That structural separation is standard for royal commissions, but it does not insulate the government from political pressure over the inquiry's pace and focus as an election approaches.
The broader context here is the convergence of several threads: the CFMEU allegations first surfaced in 2024, the scale of Victoria's Big Build infrastructure programme, and the question of whether government oversight mechanisms were adequate or were circumvented. The commission's terms of reference reach across all of these simultaneously. The inclusion of a recoupment mandate, specifically whether taxpayer funds can be recovered, gives the inquiry a financial accountability dimension beyond fact-finding. The $50 million budget and one-year reporting window suggest an inquiry designed to deliver findings quickly, though royal commissions frequently seek extensions.
Several dynamics will be worth watching. The coercive power over cabinet documents could surface internal government deliberations about project oversight, procurement decisions, and interactions with the CFMEU. The decision to appoint an out-of-state jurist, a former chief justice of South Australia rather than a Victorian figure, is consistent with the need for perceived independence given that Victorian premiers and ministers are within the potential witness pool. And the intersection of an active election cycle with a commission that could call former premiers as witnesses creates a dynamic where procedural decisions by the commissioner, such as hearing schedules and witness lists, will carry political weight regardless of the commissioner's intent.
