Paperwork demands sent labour hire firm packing from ACT

But the building union says Active Labour, linked to bikies and dodgy deals at the massive Barangaroo development, walked away from Canberra after it was asked to complete official workplace paperwork.

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Fairfax Media revealed on Tuesday that the building industry in NSW and Victoria was rife with corruption and infiltrated by bikie gangs with the union, the CFMEU, embroiled in the allegations.

But both the ACT branch of the union and Canberra's peak construction industry group told The Canberra Times that criminality was not a serious problem for the sector in Canberra. The CFMEU's branch secretary, Dean Hall, said Active Labour approached the union in late 2012, expressing an interest in setting up in the capital. Mr Hall said the Sydney company controlled by crime figure George Alex was handed documentation needed for an enterprise bargaining agreement registered with Fair Work Australia.

"That was it, that was the last we saw of them, we never heard from them again," Mr Hall said.

As the CFMEU's national leadership struggles to deal with Tuesday's revelations, Mr Hall said the Canberra branch was clean of corruption and criminality and had not had a single allegation against any of its members or officials substantiated.

"Any allegation of corruption is taken extremely seriously by the union," he said. "The CFMEU in the ACT has a strong brand and even people who do not like unions or the CFMEU understand that we are powerful stakeholder in the areas of workplace safety and workers' rights. We would deal very harshly with any individuals who tarnish the reputation of the union for their own benefit."

The deputy director of the Master Builders Association, Jerry Howard, said the building industry had many problems with the CFMEU but corruption was not one of them. "Where you have multimillion projects, you're always going to have some lobbying by interested parties but there's a difference between lobbying and paying kickbacks," Mr Howard said. He believed the problems caused by criminal elements in Sydney and Melbourne were not present to the same extent in Canberra. "We've always been reasonably well behaved here," Mr Howard said. "I'm not saying things don't go on, and I've heard a few stories over the years, but I'd hang my hat on saying that we wouldn't have much corruption in Canberra's building industry."

Fair Work Building and Construction refused to answer questions about any allegation of corruption it had received in the ACT building industry.