Australian Federal Police officers have raided the home of a former senior official of the militant construction union as part of their probe into corruption in Victoria’s building industry.<\/p>\n
At least half a dozen officers and a sniffer dog arrived at former CFMEU official John Perkovic’s Keilor home in Melbourne’s northern suburbs early this morning.<\/p>\n
Police could be seen searching items in the house’s backyard and under a black Range Rover SUV parked in the driveway.<\/p>\n
Mr Perkovic left the house a short time later.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Perkovic gestures while exiting his Melbourne home during the AFP raid. (ABC News: Jess Longbottom)<\/p>\n
Mr Perkovic was a CFMEU organiser for more than a decade in the union’s Victorian branch when it was led by John Setka.<\/p>\n
He was promoted to second in charge after the union was placed under administration in 2024, amid accusations of widespread wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
However, he was dismissed in October 2025 after allegations of corruption against him were exposed in the media.<\/p>\n
Mr Perkovic\u2019s Keilor property is at the centre of the alleged wrongdoing, which has since been detailed in a report by anti-corruption barrister Geoffrey Watson submitted to Queensland’s Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Home and vintage cars highlighted by CFMEU inquiry<\/p>\n
Mr Watson alleged Perkovic netted at least $1 million from corrupt property transactions involving the block of land when he worked for the CFMEU.<\/p>\n
His house was built by a business that was getting benefits from Mr Perkovic, Mr Watson alleged, while Mr Perkovic was unable to say how much the building cost, or how the works were financed.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4f83a8e77dbbcf765a09844ea7ab39da.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Former CFMEU organiser John Perkovic. (CFMEU)<\/p>\n
The block at the back of the home was purchased by another contractor in 2020 who was allegedly benefiting from Mr Perkovic.<\/p>\n
The land was transferred to Mr Perkovic’s daughter in 2024, free of charge, according to the Watson report.<\/p>\n
Mr Watson alleged Mr Perkovic benefited from other companies as well \u2014 getting his home insurance paid for by a labour hire firm, and also owning three cars that had been paid for by construction companies.<\/p>\n
One was a vintage Ford Falcon GT worth more than $100,000.<\/p>\n
Mr Watson said Mr Perkovic was high up in the informal power structure of the CFMEU, holding a position of influence just below that of Mr Setka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian Federal Police officers have raided the home of a former senior official of the militant construction union…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,21209,1003,324,21210,140870,260,3698,68],"class_list":["post-85419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-big-build","tag-cfmeu","tag-construction","tag-corruption","tag-john-perkovic","tag-melbourne","tag-raid","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}