Big Build royal commission LIVE updates: Gap Road project probe continues after John Holland managers discuss secret CFMEU meetings

Watch the royal commission into Victoria’s construction industry below:

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The first witness this morning is Quinton Drury, who has worked for WorkSafe for the past nine years and inspected major construction sites, including the Gap Road site.

That is the one subject to the first block of hearings in this royal commission.

Drury has been questioned about his interactions generally with union members who raised safety issues about building sites.

The inspector said tensions would rise on site if WorkSafe inspectors didn’t support what the construction union claimed were safety breaches.

Watch the royal commission into Victoria’s construction industry below:

In case you missed it, John Holland manager Joe Aygur told the commission late in the day that there was a “view” within government that if a deal was not done with the CFMEU - to give the union what it wanted - the company would not win further work.

Asked where that view came from Aygur said: “The minister’s office”.

Watch the moment below:

It is expected the commission will continue to call witnesses today, after a bombshell day on Tuesday.

The identities of the witnesses cannot be published ahead of their appearance, but the commission made clear that this two-week hearing block will focus solely on the Gap Road level crossing removal project in Sunbury.

More specifically, it will be looking at the events of June 2022, when the CFMEU effectively muscled its way onto the project and into the heart of the $109 billion Big Build program.

Crucially, counsel assisting Chris Young KC reminded those who attended in person and those watching, the witnesses were compelled to provide evidence.

Here’s what he said:

All of the witnesses that we have heard from ... have been compelled to attend, the evidence that they have given has no doubt been difficult, and it has been difficult for them to revisit difficult times and events during their working lives.

They had no choice about giving the evidence that they gave today.”

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the royal commission into Victoria’s construction industry.

To get you up to speed on yesterday’s hearing here’s some early reading:

• Clay Lucas’ news story on how state officials told a major contractor it would be frozen out of future multibillion-dollar transport projects unless it caved in to the CFMEU’s demands.
• Michael Bachelard’s analysis on witness testimony about how the construction union made demands about who could work on site at a pivotal meeting in 2022.
• Nick McKenzie’s latest revelation that an employee of a Big Build labour hire company was charged with drug trafficking by a taskforce created to combat alleged organised crime and corruption in the industry.