For a leader who has weathered enough political controversies to earn the nickname “Teflon Dan”, it’s not surprising that Daniel Andrews has attempted to downplay an anti-corruption watchdog report into his government’s actions.
After the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission released its findings over the awarding of a $1.2m contract to a Labor-affiliated union, Andrews spent an hour in front of journalists, seeking to minimise the fallout.
“There are no findings against anyone in this report – it is an educational report,” Andrews repeatedly told a press conference on Wednesday. “It’s an educational report, not a report delivered because wrongdoing was found.”
The matters investigated by Ibac were “some years ago” and involved staff who no longer work for the government, as well as two ministers who no longer sit in parliament. He “was not involved” and “was not aware” of the contract or how it came about.
Nothing to see here, according to the premier, who will “take time” to consider Ibac’s recommendations – and its deadline – which he also brushed off.
“The 17 recommendations don’t recommend actions be taken against individuals or any of that sort of stuff,” he said.
“It says, ‘OK, this is what happened some years ago – here’s a bunch of different things we can do, that the government should look to do to make sure that we have even better frameworks in the future.’”
Unsurprisingly, the comments are in line with previous ones the premier has made on integrity issues.
In March he referred to Ibac’s former commissioner Robert Redlich as “a bloke who used to do a job, who’s written a letter I haven’t seen”.
This followed the publication of a letter by Redlich who claimed government MPs on the parliamentary committee that oversees Ibac had sought to undermine the watchdog.
When the Age broke the story about Ibac’s investigation into the union contract in the lead-up to the November state election, Andrews criticised the reporting as “smear and innuendo” and “based on anonymous sources”.
For Stephen Charles KC, one of the founders of Ibac and a Centre for Public Integrity director, it’s been frustrating to watch.
“This government has just given away integrity in government,” he told Guardian Australia. “The way it’s behaving, as shown here, as shown in its response to Redlich’s letter … is a complete lack of interest, both in integrity and in the body that was created to protect Victorians against corruption in government.
“They’ve allowed Ibac to fall into decay, they underfund it, they have imposed over it an oversight committee dominated and controlled by Labor. They’ve done their best to treat as of no consequence at all very serious misbehaviour in government.”
(As for Charles, the premier described him as a “former judge who I’ve never met” and dismissed his criticisms as a “spray in the newspaper”.)
Charles said findings detailed in the Ibac report were “incredibly concerning”, despite not meeting the commission’s threshold of corrupt conduct – which the premier was at pains to point out during his press conference.
“The definition in the Ibac legislation of corruption is far too narrow,” Charles said.
He said it precluded Ibac from investigating “grey corruption”, including allegations of pork barrelling, misconduct in public office and conflicts of interest. It’s a criticism Redlich also repeatedly made during his term as commissioner.
“Grey corruption” is also precisely how Ibac refers to the behaviour of the staffers in its report, which did not make any findings of corruption against Andrews, health ministers Jill Hennessy and Jenny Mikakos, or staff working in their offices.
According to Ibac, the health department bypassed a competitive procurement process and awarded the Health Workers Union a training contract after being “improperly influenced” by staff in the health minister’s office. The premier’s private office (PPO) then attempted to “dissuade” it from terminating it in following years, Ibac said.
A Monash University associate professor, Yee-Fui Ng, welcomes Ibac’s recommendations, having spent years researching and advocating for stronger legal frameworks for ministerial advisers, whose presence in government has continued to grow.
“There’s also the problem that the minister can say, ‘I wasn’t informed, I wasn’t advised of this,’” Ng says. “The adviser becomes the scapegoat because there’s no regulation of them.”
According to Ibac, there are now 70 to 80 advisers in the PPO and 286 advisers across all ministerial portfolios. A paper published in 2011 suggested that, at that time, the PPO comprised 19 advisers, a chief of staff and a personal assistant.
The centralisation of power in the PPO is also canvassed in the Ibac report – and was also denied by the premier in his press conference on Wednesday.
“I wouldn’t expect integrity agencies who run very sweeping and broad commentary to have any appreciation whatsoever of what occurred in previous Labor or Liberal governments,” he said.
Operation Daintree is the fourth Ibac inquiry the premier has been interviewed by since 2019.
Operation Watts, an investigation into branch-stacking and the misuse of publicly funded staff by his former ministers, prompted an immediate apology from the premier, who accepted its 21 recommendations as soon as they were made.
There’s also Operation Sandon, an investigation into allegations of corrupt conduct involving councillors and property developers in the city of Casey in Melbourne’s south-east, and Operation Richmond, into a firefighters pay dispute.
It’s yet to be seen how he will respond to those.
