The Gyles Royal Commission found that Leighton (parent company of Thiess) routinely engaged in corrupt and unlawful collusive behaviour in order to improperly enrich itself.   The conduct was ingrained and took place over a lengthy period.   Here is a link to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's webpage describing Leighton's behaviour:

Heavy Construction Tenders and ‘Loser’s Fees’

The tender for the Commonwealth Office at Haymarket, Sydney, in 1988 led to the exposure of long-term collusive practices by large construction firms. Before the close of tender, the industry association, the Australian Federation of Construction Contractors, called a meeting of the four firms bidding for the contract. It was agreed that the winning firm should pay the three losers $750 000 each, and the AFCC $1 million. The project was worth around $200 million. The transactions were to be concealed by invoices for consultancy services.

The arrangement was exposed by a New South Wales Royal Commission into the construction industry. The Federal Court issued penalties of $1.75 million on the companies and individuals involved. It came out in the case that ‘loser’s fees’ were a common arrangement in the industry.

The court found that there was an expectation (thus an agreement) that these fees were levied in addition to the contract price. As such, they were an imposition on the developer, in this case the Commonwealth government, and therefore on the taxpayer.

An industry association was central to this case:

Industry association legal cases

ACCC v CC Constructions and others (1999)

The tender for the Commonwealth Office at Haymarket, Sydney, in 1988 led to the exposure of long-term collusive practices by large construction firms.

Before the close of tender the industry association, the Australian Federation of Construction Contractors (AFCC), called a meeting of the four firms bidding for the contract. It was agreed that to enable recovery of overheads associated with preparing tenders the winning firm should pay the three losers $750 000 each, and the AFCC $1 million. The project was worth around $200 million. The transactions were to be concealed by invoices for consultancy services.

The arrangement was difficult to detect because it added fixed price components to the final tender prices, which were otherwise prepared in competition with each other. The competitive positions of each of these companies were not disturbed.

The arrangement was exposed by a New South Wales Royal Commission into the construction industry. The Federal Court issued penalties of $1.75 million on the companies and individuals involved. It came out in the case that ‘loser’s fees’ were a common arrangement in the industry.

The court found that there was an expectation (thus an agreement) that these fees were levied in addition to the contract price. As such, they were an imposition on the developer, in this case the Commonwealth government, and therefore on the taxpayer.

The Anti Competitive behaviour section tells us about Cartels - illustrated with case studies and examples.

Cartels case studies & legal cases

Read about cartel activities the ACCC has investigated.

• Bid rigging
• Market sharing
• Output restriction legal cases
• Price fixing
• Industry association legal cases
• More information

Corrupt unions in combination with corrupt construction companies make for powerful cartels.   The Commission's CFMEU hearings have made that crystal clear.  Union monopoly coverage of labour with the power to inflict huge financial damage on construction companies means specialist investigative and enforcement authorities are needed to uncover corruption.   Like this Royal Commission.   For some years after Gyles, then Cole things would settle down in corrupt construction/union affairs.  Then like termites, back comes the corrupt behaviour.  

Cartels are just part of the anti-competitive smorgasboard available to people who don't like to compete, here is  a link to the ACCC on Anti-Competitive Agreements.

(As an aside, the legal authorities the ACCC quotes as setting out the test for "agreements" or "understandings" between people are fascinating, particularly in the context of Ms Gillard apparently coincidentally doing what Wilson says he wanted without ever knowing why or what he was up to):

.....they involve the development of a plan of action between two or more people that may not be enforceable at law but they have every intention of following.

In relation to the 'arrangement', the court has said:

... when each of two or more parties intentionally arouses in the others an expectation that he will act in a certain way, it seems to me that he incurs at least a moral obligation to do so. An arrangement as so defined is therefore something whereby the parties to it accept mutual rights and obligations.

TPC v Nicholas Enterprises Pty Ltd (No 2) (1979) FLR 83

As to 'understanding':

An understanding must involve the meeting of two or more minds. Where the minds of the parties are at one that a proposed transaction between them proceeds on the basis of the maintenance of a particular state of affairs or the adoption of a particular course of conduct, it would seem that there would be an understanding ...

Top Performance Motors Ltd v Ira Berk (Qld) Pty Ltd (1975) 24 FLR 286

To arrive at an understanding or to make an arrangement it is not necessary for anything to be written down. In fact, such agreements are often not put into writing. Nothing need even be expressed—a ‘nod and wink’ is sufficient.

If necessary, the court will infer the requisite 'meeting of minds' from circumstantial evidence such as evidence of joint action, similar pricing structures, or even from evidence of opportunities the parties had to reach an understanding.

It is important to consider both what is actually said and what each party understands to be the position.

Consider Wilson and Thiess/Leighton in the context of what you've just read about proving arrangements/understandings/agreements.

The ACCC's predecessor took Leighton and its competitors along with some executives before the Federal Court, some of the links to the cases are here:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/1995/1418.html

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/1995/1236.html

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/1994/1507.html

Trade Practices Commission v Cc (New South Wales) Pty Limited Formerly Known As Concrete Constructions (Nsw) Pty Limited, Peter Woollard, Holland Stolte Pty Limited, Graham Ronald Duff, Multiplex Constructions Pty Limited, Geoffrey Thomas Palmer, Leighton [1995] FCA 1236 (5 May 1995)

Here is the then Trade Practices Commission's pleaded statement of facts, accepted by the Federal Court in its sentencing processes.

"The following is an account of the facts alleged by 
the Commission in the amended statement of claim. 
At all material times Concretes, Hollands, Multiplex 
and Leightons carried on business as building and 
construction contractors in New South Wales and were 
members of the AFCC. On or about 11 August 1988, 
Australian Construction Services ('ACS'), part of 
the Commonwealth Department of Administrative 
Services, for and on behalf of the Commonwealth of 
Australia, invited Concretes, Hollands, Multiplex 
and Leightons ('the Tenderers') to submit tenders 
for the Haymarket Project. 
In or about September or October 1988, John 
Cunningham ('Cunningham'), Director of Special 
Projects with the AFCC, for and on behalf of the 
AFCC, contacted the Tenderers and notified them of 
his intention to conduct a meeting of them in 
relation to the Haymarket Project prior to the 
closing date for tenders. The Tenderers accepted 
Cunningham's invitation. The intention of 
Cunningham and of each of the Tenderers in the 
setting up of, and agreement to attend the meeting, 
was that the Tenderers would be enabled to take into 
account in the preparation of their tenders any 
matters agreed at the meeting, which they expected 
would include arrangements or understandings on the 
subjects of a 'special fee' payable by the 
successful Tenderer to the AFCC, and unsuccessful 
tenderers' fees payable by the successful Tenderer 
to the three unsuccessful Tenderers. 
Prior to the proposed meeting, Richmond instructed 
Cunningham to propose that the successful Tenderer 
should pay to the AFCC a special fee of $1,000,000. 
The meeting took place in September or October 1988 
and was attended by Woollard of Concretes, Duff of 
Hollands, Palmer of Multiplex, Dixon of Leightons 
and Cunningham of the AFCC ('the Meeting') when it 
was agreed that each Tenderer would, if its tender 
was accepted, pay a special fee to the AFCC of 
$1,000,000 ('the Special Fee'), would take its 
obligation to do so into account in the preparation 
of its tender, and would not disclose to ACS the 
terms of the arrangement or understanding or the 
fact that the Meeting had taken place (para 21 of 
the amended statement of claim). 
After that agreement ('the Special Fee agreement') 
had been reached, Cunningham was asked to leave the 
room which he did and the Meeting resumed between 
the four representatives of the Tenderers who agreed 
that the successful Tenderer would pay to each of 
the unsuccessful Tenderers an unsuccessful 
tenderer's fee of $750,000 ('the UTF'), and that 
each Tenderer would take this obligation into 
account in the preparation of its tender, and would 
not disclose to ACS the terms of the arrangement or 
understanding or the fact that the Meeting had taken 
place ('the UTFs agreement') (para 24 of the amended 
statement of claim). 
The Tenderers did take into account the arrangements 
or understandings reached at the Meeting in the 
preparation and submission of their tenders; ACS 
awarded the contract to Hollands; Richmond caused or 
procured the AFCC by its National Executive 
Committee to ratify and levy the Special Fee on 
Hollands; in or about January or February 1989 
Hollands paid $200,000 or $300,000 to the AFCC as 
part of the Special Fee; subsequently over a period 
from 24 July 1989 to 1 February 1990 the AFCC sent a 
series of seven invoices of $100,000 each to 
Hollands which it paid on account of the Special 
Fee; Concretes, Multiplex and Leightons each sent to 
Hollands a series of invoices which represented 
parts of the respective UTFs and totalled, in 
respect of each of the other three tenderers, 
$750,000 which Hollands paid. Each of the invoices 
sent by the AFCC and by Concretes, Multiplex and 
Leightons to Hollands purported to be claims for 
'consultancy services' which had not been provided 
and which were never intended to be provided. 
The amended statement of claim further alleges that 
the conduct pleaded constituted various 
contraventions of the Trade Practices Act 1974 ('the 
Act')".

This case shows that Leighton routinely engaged in corrupt practices to win business during the 1980s/early 1990s.   In order to make profits, Leighton was prepared to take or pay money in bribes/incentives/secret commissions.   In the Commonwealth Building case Leighton was the recipient of money as a result of the unlawful arrangement with its competitors, had it won that tender it was prepared to pay money out in order to maintain the arrangement.

The construction industry has relatively tight profit margins.   Beyond the costs of bidding for jobs (covered by the arrangement above) once a contract is won and underway, profitability is exquisitely sensitive to industrial disputes. If you're prepared to act corruptly on a relatively low cost exposure, the temptation to act corruptly to avoid killer-costs like industrial action must have been hard to resist.

It seems to me inevitable that a corrupt company like Leighton would gravitate towards a corrupt union official like Wilson.  Leighton was prepared to systematically and corruptly take or pay money to its competitors to provide a small financial return on its costs of bidding for projects, in the order of a few hundred thousand dollars.   Strike action could cost it millions, or the entirety of its profits on certain projects.   We have established what Leighton was - a company that would engage in corrupt payments to its competitors.  What remains to be proven is the character of its payments to the corrupt union boss Mr Wilson.

The proposition that Thiess/Leighton believed they were getting workplace reform/training services from Wilson/Blewitt and their strange corporate structure stretches credulity.   Invoices were backdated to describe training from several months before any agreement was reached, indeed the invoices covered some months before the project was active.   The invoices continued 8 months after the project was cut off.  No training ever took place.   That means no training could be seen or assessed for financial signoff of Wilson's invoices.  No pretence at training took place.   Thiess got nothing, yet no one in Thiess raised any alarm bells.  

The Federal Court case highlighting Leighton's corrupt practices shows us Leighton was itself prepared to raise dodgy consultancy invoices in order to trigger corrupt payments.   It understood the dodgy invoice caper very well.

In that context it's common sense that the payments to Wilson's dodgy association were more likely corrupt than genuine.  The Federal Court tells us Leighton was corrupt, add the corrupt Wilson, the corrupt lawyer Gillard and the "persuadable" Carmen Lawrence government and you get the "pefect storm" for fraud.    It's certainly worthy of investigation rather than the recitation of implausible cover stories from people in nice suits.

Corruption arises from culture and Leighton's was corrupt.   Wilson/Gillard were too.  Hugh Morgan tells us then Premier Carmen Lawrence did what Wilson said in fear of losing her job as Premier.

I hope the Royal Commission, like me, is still on the case.