Background

On 20th August, Victorian Premier Ben Carroll announced the Royal Commission into the Integrity of Major Public and Civil Infrastructure Construction Projects in Victoria.

The following day, former IBAC commissioner Robert Redlich and former ombudsman Deborah Glass said, in a joint statement to The Age:

‘…while the royal commission had been given necessarily broad terms of reference to interrogate extraordinary allegations of corruption on Big Build sites, the inquiry also needed to examine whether the government created the conditions for this corruption by sidestepping its own planning rules in the pursuit of vote-winning projects.”

A Royal Commission is invoked by a Letters Patent, signed and sealed – in this case – by the Governor of Victoria. Here’s the Letters Patent, which includes the proposed Terms of Reference:

The terms of reference focus on what’s happening on the construction sites, pursuant to the deep and detailed exposés of The Age’s Building Bad series. The relationship between the State Government and powerful unions like the CFMEU, and in turn with alleged criminal elements, is the primary concern.

Liberal Party’s proposal

The Liberal Party’s proposed terms of reference for a Royal Commission are as follows:

These terms are firmly directed at the Labor Party. They stipulate that the Royal Commission should look back only as far as 4 December 2014 (the date that Daniel Andrews became Premier), and they give a list of names that should be compelled to appear. This list contains only Labor politicians, amongst unionists, alleged criminals and selected public servants, and it ignores that fact that the Commissioner can compel any person to appear.

What transport advocacy groups say

Government funding decisions are deeply politicised, especially around multi-billion dollar transport infrastructure projects that inevitably shape the future of Victoria. And they’ve been that way for many years, under governments of both political persuasions.

Before the Premier’s announcement, the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA), Rail Futures Institute (RFI), Victorian Transport Action Group (VTAG) and Charter 29 submitted an open letter to the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition calling for broad terms of reference for the proposed Royal Commission.

The signatories agree that the root causes of construction corruption lie in:

• politicisation and privatisation of the public sector
• absence of orderly, robust land use and transport planning, and
• poor investment decisions lacking transparency.

On 20 August 2026, the same day as Premier Carroll’s announcement, these same four groups signed up to the following Briefing Note, which gives a detailed background into the reasons behind their call for broader Terms of Reference:

My views on the matter

I co-authored the above Briefing Note and Open Letter, and I support them wholeheartedly. I also strongly support the call by Robert Redlich and Deborah Glass for broader terms of reference to tackle the deeper problem of the broken planning system.

Here are a few of my personal thoughts.

Narrow reference to corruption and alleged criminal behaviour on construction sites will miss the underlying issues and the responsibility of all politicians to maintain good governance. Stuart Sweeney puts it well, when writing about investigating corruption:

“It must get to the bottom. That means exposing wage theft, sham contracting, coercion, labour hire abuse, organised crime, false invoicing, phoenix companies and intimidation on building sites. These are real crimes committed against workers, subcontractors and taxpayers. They deserve investigation and prosecution. But it must also get to the top. Who decides which projects are built? Who owns the land before rezoning? Who writes the business cases? Who benefits from planning decisions? Who wins the major contracts?”

Multiple reports from the Ombudsman, Auditor General and others highlight many governance failings and weaknesses.

There’s continued failure to prioritise better transport where it’s needed most, in favour of where it wins most votes. As elegantly put by Kos Samaras, huge investments are directed to marginal seats while safe ones are ignored. This is overt pork-barrelling with billions of public funds.

The principles of 2010’s Transport Integration Act are ignored, or softened by challenging the Act’s wording or interpretation. An example of this was during the EES hearings for the West Gate Tunnel, where Western Distributor Authority lawyers argued around the word ‘minimise’ and the phrase ‘have regard to’ in the Act:

The TIA needs strengthening to prevent it being challenged in this way. It’s an excellent piece of legislation that was established with good intentions, but since it was passed 16 years ago it’s had no positive effect that I can think of, apart from lining the pockets of planning lawyers (with taxpayer’s money, I might add!) that pull it apart.

Local governments are being stripped of their planning powers for no good reason; some object, and some have shown they can achieve the Government’s housing growth targets without intervention, and without the impact on place, heritage and amenity that the Government’s plans incur.

There’s lots of discussion to be had, and lots of debate between professionals in the land use planning, architecture and transport planning fields. A broadened Royal Commission could be the place for these views to be aired.

Victoria’s land use and transport planning system is broken, and it’s time to fix it.

Whether you agree with me or not, I encourage you to write with your views to the Premier and Leader of the Opposition. Their email addresses are:

• Premier: ben.carroll@parliament.vic.gov.au
• Leader of the Opposition: jess.wilson.mp@parliament.vic.gov.au

I hope you get a reply, beyond the auto-response. I didn’t!

I also encourage you to track the progress of the Royal Commission, and make submissions once the mechanisms for doing so are available. This could be a major opportunity to throw light on the issues we’ve all come across when trying to implement good planning practice, robust appraisal and the best use of public funds in such a politicised environment.

Endnote: what powers does a Royal Commission have?

Finally, it’s worth summarising what a Royal Commission can (and can’t) do, and how the terms of reference are established (with thanks to Google AI):

In Victoria, the terms of reference for a royal commission are drafted by the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) and specialised government legal advisors like the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office (VGSO), under the direction of the Premier and the state cabinet, before being formally issued by the Governor as ‘Letters Patent’.

The drafting process:

• Government direction: The Premier or responsible Minister instructs public service departments to frame the core scope and objectives.
• Legal formulation: Expert public-law drafters and counsel from the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office write the specific legal wording for the inquiry.
• Administrative support: The Department of Premier and Cabinet coordinates the operational parameters and administrative setup.

Formal establishment:

• Governor-in-Council: Once written, the terms of reference are finalised and embedded into Letters Patent.
• Official ascent: The Governor of Victoria formally signs and issues the Letters Patent on the advice of the Premier, officially creating the Royal Commission under the Inquiries Act 2014.

What a Royal Commission can compel:

• Witness attendance: Force a person to show up and give testimony.
• Answers under oath: Require witnesses to answer questions truthfully, even if the answers are embarrassing or politically sensitive.
• Production of documents: Demand internal files, emails, or records that an agency or business might prefer to hide.

What a Royal Commission cannot do:

• No criminal prosecution: It cannot find someone guilty of a crime or put someone in jail for past offences (it can only refer evidence of a crime to the police). In this specific case, however, The Premier will appoint a Special Prosecutor, empowered so that ‘when wrongdoing is uncovered, it is investigated and it is pursued, and people face consequences.’
• No force on policy: It cannot force the government to change laws or adopt its recommendations.
• No civil liability: It cannot decide civil lawsuits or award financial compensation to victims.

How much of this happens in public or private is a matter for the Commissioner, and there are protection provisions for witnesses which might apply.