Big Build royal commission LIVE updates: Gap Road witnesses continue after CFMEU organiser claims boss boasted of ‘direct line to Jacinta Allan’s office’

At yesterday’s hearing, a former CFMEU official claimed that a union boss boasted of having a “direct line to Jacinta Allan’s office” at a pivotal meeting with contractors who wanted to end a costly dispute on a rail project.

Former organiser Paul Tzimas spoke about a crucial meeting on June 7 in 2022, between the union and construction firm bosses from John Holland.

Here’s what he told the commission.

The first week of the commission’s hearings has focused on the $110 million Gap Road level crossing removal project in Sunbury.

Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve heard so far:

• Counsel assisting the commission Chris Young, KC, got the week rolling on Monday, noting that the most senior bureaucrats working for then-minister (and later the premier) Jacinta Allan had tried to warn her about the CFMEU’s conduct in 2022 and 2023. This raises questions about Allan’s public position that she was unaware until this masthead’s Building Bad series broke in 2024.
• On Tuesday, we heard from senior figures at construction giant John Holland about the gathering stoush at Gap Road in June 2022 and the problems the CFMEU’s conduct was causing. They told the hearing that a government official had warned that there was a view from “the minister’s office” that the company couldn’t win work in Victoria if it couldn’t work with the CFMEU. They detailed a key meeting at the CFMEU’s headquarters on June 7 where one of the managers said a top official, Joe Myles, told them that giving in to the union’s demands would improve its chances of winning other projects, specifically the Melbourne Airport Rail. As Michael Bachelard noted, this was a big moment.
• The June 7 meeting loomed large again yesterday when former CFMEU organiser Paul Tzimas, the first union figure to testify, told the commission that Myles had boasted of a “direct line to Jacinta Allan’s office”. Tzimas, as the John Holland executives had recalled, said Myles had dangled the lure of work on the Airport Rail project if the company gave in to the CFMEU’s demands for its preferred traffic management and labour hire companies to be appointed to the project, as well as its own hand-picked, unelected health and safety representatives. Underworld figure Mick Gatto also got his first mention too, with Tzimas describing his gift of a gold bracelet on a Carlton street.