Ibac report: former Victoria government officials engaged in ‘serious and concerning’ conduct
Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog has found senior members of the former Andrews government acted improperly in dealings with a firefighters union boss, but found no evidence of blackmail.
Senior members of the former Victorian government led by Daniel Andrews engaged in “serious and concerning” conduct during interactions with Peter Marshall, the secretary of the United Firefighter Union (UFU), according to a long-awaited report by the state’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac). The report was tabled in parliament on Wednesday, roughly eight years after the investigation began.
While the commission did not find that any individual had committed corrupt conduct, it said senior officials had breached policy, procedure and codes of conduct, deliberately attempted to conceal and mislead, and misused information. The findings relate to negotiations over enterprise bargaining agreements for the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB), which were later amalgamated into Fire Services Victoria (FSV).
Ibac also found that the government struck an “undisclosed deal” with Marshall that excluded other key stakeholders, allowing him to exercise “extraordinary influence” over the negotiations. Marshall was also given “privileged access” to ministers responsible for the portfolio.
The report’s release follows years of legal efforts by the UFU to keep it secret, including a challenge in the High Court. The investigation was launched in 2018 after a tip-off alleging Marshall had “blackmailed or otherwise compromised” Andrews to change his position on the CFA enterprise bargaining agreement. Ibac found no evidence of blackmail and did not substantiate the claim, which both Andrews and Marshall denied.
