By David Marin-Guzman,Nick McKenzie

Copyright brisbanetimes

“I truly believe VIDA and its use of public money should be investigated,” the former senior public servant states in the January complaint to IBAC.

The ex-official declined to comment to this masthead, citing their need for confidentiality as a whistleblower. They cannot be named because they have been granted protected disclosure status.

The Big Build has already been plagued by reports of multibillion-dollar blowouts, and the whistleblower’s allegations focused on excessive internal spending.

The scathing IBAC complaint alleges VIDA’s culture permitted “regularly spending significant sums on corporate projects that are frivolous” and efforts to conceal wasteful spending.

The whistleblower is scathing in their formal complaint of what they describe as VIDA’s unaccountable reliance on overcharging private sector consultants who delivered little value to taxpayers “costing millions of dollars to ‘fail fast’”.

“The setting up and use of consultants is encouraged to manage ebbs and flows of work, despite none of this work being critical or crucial to the removal of level crossings,” the complaint states.

Another consulting firm is identified in the complaint as being heavily used “in various capacities that could either have been serviced from within or VPS [Victorian Public Service] staff recruited.” One consultant was billing VIDA about $45,000 a month, the complaint states.

“Some teams are made up almost completely of technical advisers from … consultancies,” it says.

According to the whistleblower, VIDA withheld adverse spending information from the Department of Premier and Cabinet. Examples cited include a consultant paid more than $850,000 for a project to reduce silos within VIDA but which the complainant alleges failed to deliver.

Another allegedly “frivolous” spend involved hundreds of thousands of dollars on managing a redundant email system.

The mismanagement of “budgeting and forecasting of technology projects” extended to “keeping details actively hidden”, the claim said.

The whistleblower has also raised concerns about corporate restructuring within VIDA “occurring with no strategy” and “to be seen as looking like something is being done” to save taxpayer funds.

A VIDA spokesperson said it had zero tolerance for unlawful behaviour and had robust integrity systems in place to prevent and detect corruption and ensure appropriate spending of taxpayer money.

The leaked files include allegations of wrongdoing with little or no connection to the CFMEU, which has been a focal point of concern, instead pointing to company corruption, taxpayer waste and official inaction.

Complaints sent to Big Build officials and, ultimately, IBAC by a subcontractor on multiple rail level crossing removal sites alleges corruption involving senior project managers.

‘Employees were taken off site during critical works, during their full-time hours to complete the personal works.’Confidential complaint

The complainant, whom this masthead is not naming because they are a whistleblower, has documented the alleged misappropriation of “government resources, government funds, materials and supplies from sites and projects”.

He claimed Big Build project managers directed his firm “to divert resources from critical government project works to complete works on their private houses and properties”.

In their complaint, which was disputed by the accused managers, the subcontractor states that “if we refused to undertake personal works for project senior management, we were threatened that we would not be paid for our contract works, would be severely financially impacted, would not be considered for upcoming projects”.

The firm’s IBAC complaint file identifies four Big Build project managers that sought personal renovations, claiming the requests “diverted government resources and funds” and one manager wanted “over $50,000 of renovation works undertaken on his personal property”.

The subcontractor also alleged he had to “disassemble a pergola on site from a level crossing removal project and … transport the pergola to his [project manager’s] home and had two of our employees sent to his house to re-erect the pergola in his backyard”.

“Employees were taken off site during critical works, during their full-time hours to complete the personal works … on the basis that if we wanted to maintain our contracts on the level crossing removal project we needed to satisfy project managers.”

Project officials said that complainant was disgruntled because his firm had collapsed due to mismanagement, but confirmed his complaint had prompted an internal inquiry.

Two of the accused project managers subsequently paid a sum of money into the bank account of the subcontractor and were disciplined.

Among the other formal Big Build complaints are claims the Victorian government’s social procurement rules requiring contractors to seek to employ a percentage of Indigenous workers have sparked systemic nepotism and cronyism.

This masthead has previously revealed how gangland figures exploited veterans or Indigenous labour-hire companies to exploit these rules and employment mandates. These firms have won work with the support of large Big Build contractors and the CFMEU.

The leaked complaints reveal that genuine Indigenous firms with no organised crime links have lodged multiple official complaints about these systemic issues.

In November 2022, First Nations Traffic Management (FNTM) began lodging formal complaints with officials from the North East Link, escalating the firm’s concerns in emails to Allan in 2024.

The complaints from First Nations allege the CFMEU colluded with major contractors to favour union-backed companies on the Big Build while “boycotting” and “black-banning” other Indigenous firms who weren’t prepared to act corruptly.

“With the recent media exposure of the corruption in the CFMEU is there any opportunity that First Nations Traffic Management’s issues raised over two years ago could finally be addressed?” a complaint sent in July last says.

Two days later, First Nations emailed a North East Link executive about allegations “brought to your attention over 2 years ago” involving “boycotting behaviour which has been clearly displayed on the ‘North-East Link Project’ (NELP)”.

“The real reason FNTM were refused work was due to our blatant non-compliance with an abhorrent (and illegal) request to ‘pay’ bribes, as a means of initiating discussions with the CFMEU for an EBA,” the email to the executive states.

The person allegedly demanding bribes is understood to be a third party with connections to company managers and senior union officials.

The executive’s response to First Nations Traffic Management confirms the receipt of “very serious allegations in your emails” and suggests a meeting to discuss the concerns.

“Given the seriousness of the allegations you have raised in your emails, there are other avenues that I would encourage you to consider in addition to meeting with us,” the executive states. “I urge you to report known or suspected instances of criminal conduct on MRPV [Major Road Projects Victoria] projects to Victoria Police.”

Leaked correspondence also reveals that Infrastructure Minister Danny Pearson responded on behalf of the premier, encouraging First Nations Traffic Management to “report your concerns to appropriate authorities”.

In response to Pearson’s letter, First Nations advised the minister that the company had already complained to multiple agencies and been told investigations would take months.

It is not the first time the premier has been told in writing by Indigenous subcontractors of possibly unlawful behaviour on the Big Build.

The complaints to Allan led to no action until they were revealed publicly in the Building Bad series and police responded, laying threat-to-kill charges against a still-serving CFMEU organiser, Joel Shackleton.

The wider issues involving social procurement have been the subject of no known official inquiry.

A third Indigenous Big Build subcontractor has also lodged formal complaints with authorities of unlawful behaviour on the major Labor projects, this time with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Complaint paperwork obtained by this masthead reveals that Indigenous firm NLA Trucking has accused a fellow Big Build contractor of agreeing to unlawful demands made by the CFMEU’s Shackleton and boycotting it from the $530 million state-funded Mordialloc station project.

“The union have their foot on our throat, they’re threatening to kick us off North East Link,” the subcontractor allegedly told NLA Trucking, according to the complaint statement.

With Kieran Rooney