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🇦🇺 Australia /Energy & Infrastructure

Construction sector probe likely to put Mick Gatto back in the spotlight

From ABC Australia · () English

Summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Under investigation
  • A Victorian royal commission will investigate allegations of corruption and organised crime links in the construction industry and the CFMEU.
  • Mick Gatto, whose influence in the sector has been examined in previous inquiries, says the probe will become a costly witch hunt and produce nothing.
  • Police arrested Gatto and searched his home in June as part of the building industry investigation, but released him without charge.

Mick Gatto says a royal commission into Victoria’s construction industry does not worry him. “They’ll spend another $100 million, it’ll be a witch hunt … and they’ll come up with nothing, like they have in the past,” he told Karl Stefanovic’s podcast in late July.

A royal commission don’t bother me.

· Mick GattoGatto said he was not concerned about the upcoming Victorian inquiry.

The inquiry, announced by former Victorian premier Ben Carroll in his first move as premier, will examine serious allegations on major public building sites. Those allegations include claims that bikies and organised crime figures infiltrated the CFMEU construction union and companies working on taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects under the government’s Big Build.

The reported cost of the alleged corruption has reached $15 billion, although former premier Jacinta Allan disputes that figure. Barrister Geoffrey Watson SC produced the estimate in a report for the CFMEU’s administrator. His report also placed Gatto at the centre of scrutiny.

They’ll spend another $100 million, it’ll be a witch hunt … and they’ll come up with nothing, like they have in the past.

· Mick GattoGatto predicted the royal commission would be costly and produce no findings.

Watson wrote that Gatto, who runs a construction-industry mediation business, had been described in civil proceedings as a “standover man” and by the National Crime Authority as “the head of a criminal network.” Gatto has denied those allegations. Watson also said Gatto wielded enough influence over Victoria’s CFMEU to shut down building sites.

Everybody knows what he has been doing. Yet he seems to survive.

· Geoffrey Watson SCWatson wrote this in a report examining Gatto’s alleged influence in the Victorian construction sector.

Gatto and his wife were arrested in June, when police searched their Mount Martha home and seized computers and phones. Both were released without charge. Gatto later said the operation was only an information-gathering exercise and had produced nothing. The 71-year-old former heavyweight boxer says his past, including his survival of Melbourne’s gangland wars and acquittal on a murder charge, has made him an unfair target. He dismissed 95 percent of Watson’s report as nonsense.

Ninety-five per cent of that report, you can rip it up and throw it in the bin. It’s completely nonsense and in time, it’ll all come out that it is nonsense.

· Mick GattoGatto rejected most of Watson’s report and said he had been unfairly targeted.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Australia. Summarized and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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