Senior staff in Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews's government interfered and pressured public servants to ensure lucrative contracts were awarded to a key Labor Party ally without competitive tender, the state's anti-corruption watchdog has found.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) has slammed the premier, health ministers and the public service for the awarding of a contract in 2018 to the Health Workers Union (HWU) to deliver specialist training to deal with occupational violence.
"The union was given privileged access and favourable treatment,'' IBAC's Operation Daintree found.