AARON PATRICK: Notorious fixer Mick Gatto controls key construction business, anti-corruption lawyer alleges

Anti-corruption lawyer Geoffrey Watson told an inquiry today that notorious Victorian building industry fixer Mick Gatto controls an important labour hire business working on the state’s “Big Build” projects despite years of scrutiny over his links to the troubled construction division of the CFMEU.

“It is my view that all the evidence points to Mick Gatto controlling the M Group companies,” Mr Watson told an inquiry in Brisbane into the union. “I had any number of people tell me that they negotiated with Mick Gatto over M Group contracts.”

A subsidiary of the M Group, which denies it is controlled by Gatto, is a registered labour hire contractor in Victoria and controls 25 to 30 per cent of traffic management services on the $100 billion-plus Big Build, according to the company. M Group expanded into Queensland early this year.

Mr Watson, who is being sued by Gatto for defamation for comments made outside the inquiry, accused the man he described as a “underworld standover man fixer” of being involved in sham companies operated by front directors.

He accused Gatto of structuring his businesses to avoid tax, including one that collapsed owing the tax office $13 million.

“That’s a Gatto model from way back and he has had companies fall over, time and time again,” Mr Watson told the inquiry today. “He does it all the time. He sets up people as front men for dummy companies.

“The company which owed $13 million in tax will escape by paying $6 million.”

The allegation that Gatto continues to directly profit from Victoria’s infrastructure projects is significant given new Victorian Premier Ben Carroll this week said he would hold a royal commission into construction industry corruption.

Mr Watson accused Gatto of being at the centre of CFMEU criminality in a report, Rotting From The Top, that was admitted as evidence in the Queensland inquiry in February. By arguing corruption had cost the state more than $15 billion, the report contributed to the resignation on Tuesday of Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, who had resisted months of pressure to call a judicial inquiry into the CFMEU and the Big Build.

The Victorian Labour Hire Authority notified an M Group company, M1 Trades & Labour, after publication of Mr Watson’s report that it planned to cancel M1’s licence. The licence is still active, allowing M1 to work on building sites, according to public records. The commissioner in charge of the decision, Steve Dargavel, will start leave next week and finish working at the authority in September, according to the inquiry.

‘Stop the theatre’

Among the reasons Mr Watson listed for believing M Group is controlled by Gatto is its name, which has the same initials as Gatto, and bank records showing it paid about $1 million to Gatto.

A barrister representing the M Group, Simon Wilson, KC, said Gatto was paid consulting fees to help M1 secure work at construction sites staffed by CFMEU members.

“I think you have got a conspiracy attitude to everything,” he told Mr Watson.

Mr Watson replied: “I think you are being a bit rude there.”

Mr Wilson said: “I’m going to be ruder later. Don’t worry.”

Commissioner Stuart Wood asked both lawyers to stop engaging in “theatre” and ask and answer questions in an orthodox way. “Mr Wilson, you don’t need all the abuse,” he said. “Just ask the question.”

An M Group director, Michael Portia, complained in a letter to the inquiry his company had been branded a “front for an organised crime figure” and identified as a “high risk” supplier by the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority.

Going to the police

In the witness box, Mr Watson complained Victorian government ministers, including Police Minister Anthony Carbines, attacked him publicly over the $15 billion figure but none contacted him to ask about his allegations against the union.

“The police minister even had the temerity to say: ‘if I had a problem why didn’t I go to the police’,” he told the inquiry.

“Oh, by the way Police Minister, did you? If you had of, you would have found out from your police force I was going to them every week. Yea, I’m a little bit sensitive about that.”

Mr Watson has been threatened over his investigations into the CFMEU, which were done on behalf of an administrator appointed to run the union in 2024 by the Albanese Labor Government.

Mr Carbines’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When she was premier, Ms Allan asserted that Mr Watson said he had been misquoted about the $15 billion cost of construction corruption.

Mr Watson then wrote to her complaining she had misrepresented him and refused to withdraw the estimate, which he has described as conservative. He did not receive a reply.