Big Build royal commission LIVE updates: Witnesses on controversial Gap Road project continue after counsel assisting lashes government
Follow our live coverage as the first week of witness examinations comes to an end and the commission keeps its microscope on the $110 million Gap Road level crossing removal.
Staff is also the lieutenant to fellow Bandidos leader and ex-CFMEU Big Build official Joel Leavitt, with the pair currently running a construction industry labour hire and consulting business. Kane Montebello is the brother of serving CFMEU senior organiser Matt Montebello.
Victoria Police’s Taskforce Hawk charged Kane Montebello and Staff this week with procuring fake building industry certificates from notorious industry conman Jack Younes.
Though the charges have not been proven, if the two former CFMEU health and safety delegates were operating with false building industry qualifications – posing a potential safety risk – it would further highlight how the construction union abandoned its principles when it embarked on the bikie-gang recruiting spree around 2021.
The charges come a month after The Age revealed that Younes, who also goes by several aliases, has for at least three years been distributing hundreds or even thousands of fake building qualification certificates to Victorian construction firms and workers, including many operating on the Big Build.
