A Big Build royal commission made Ben Carroll premier. Now it could cost him the election

On Monday morning, two weeks of public hearings will open in the royal commission into Victoria's Big Build, and they will land squarely in the middle of a state election campaign. For Labor, the timing could hardly be worse. The party wants to talk about almost anything other than allegations of corruption and criminal infiltration of government projects. For the Coalition, the hearings are an opening it intends to use.

Premier Ben Carroll's campaign bus carries the slogan "new premier, new direction." Over the next fortnight he will face sustained questions about what his predecessors did and about a past he is trying to leave behind. Labor insiders fear the coverage could do damage. A senior Labor source says the plan will not change if bad stories emerge: Carroll will go before the media and say he set the inquiry up and wants answers. "Ben is owning it," the source says. "The campaign will own it."

In practice, the party has little choice. Formally known as the Royal Commission into the Integrity of Major Public and Civil Infrastructure Construction Projects, the inquiry may have been Carroll's first decision as premier. But he has no say over when hearings are held or who is called to give evidence.

His premiership is also tied to the commission. His predecessor, Jacinta Allan, refused to call one even after admitting that criminals had infiltrated construction projects. Her party room turned to someone who would. When Carroll walked into Government House as the writs for the election were issued, he said he wanted to be a premier who did what he said he would do on integrity.

That stance has earned him respect from one of Victorian Labor's most persistent critics. Deborah Glass, the state's ombudsman from 2014 to 2024, publicly called for a royal commission in June, weeks before Allan resigned. She calls the inquiry a necessary examination of a shameful chapter in Victoria's history, and says Carroll has shown political courage in setting up a process that will be painful for his predecessors and his party alike.

The pain was previewed this week, when some early submissions reached the media. William McDougall, a planning expert with five decades of experience on Victorian government projects, wrote that Labor advisers may have influenced major projects without transparency or accountability. He argued that under the Big Build, "announcement precedes analysis, dissent is discouraged, and accountability is weakened," a system he says raises the risk of inferior projects, misallocated public funds, suppressed professional advice and conditions in which misconduct can flourish. The government denies these claims, and the commission will test them.

Also damaging are headlines linking Labor to the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union, a central player in the scandal. On Friday the commission said its initial focus would include the union's conduct on rail projects in Sunbury. In 2024, the then Victorian CFMEU boss, John Setka, quit after 12 years in the job following a Nine investigation. It detailed misconduct allegations, including how senior bikie figures had been installed as union delegates on the Big Build.

The politics are plain in the numbers. In August, Roy Morgan polling of 2,084 Victorians found that corruption and integrity failures were the top issues that would stop people voting for Labor. Some Labor MPs would still prefer the commission did not exist. They argue Allan failed to respond properly when Nine's newspapers first aired the allegations in 2024, and that a stronger response would have limited the political harm. The MPs have toed the line, but some unions have not: the Electrical Trades Union has decided not to fund Labor's campaign, a loss the party concedes could be costly.

Polls predict Labor will lose on 28 November, which would make the commission Carroll's lasting legacy. The Liberals plan to widen its remit to investigate all trade unions, along with the political and financial incentives behind the Big Build. Glass hopes that whatever happens in the coming weeks, the commission will deliver a forensic account of what went wrong and why, and says Victorians need answers as soon as possible.