Integrity issues never a priority for ‘can do’ premier Daniel Andrews

When Daniel Andrews did his first radio interview for eons with the ABC’s new morning presenter Raf Epstein last week, the conversation inevitably turned to matters of integrity.

Epstein put to the premier criticisms from former anti-corruption commissioner Robert Redlich and current Ombudsman Deborah Glass about Labor’s integrity record, including its tardiness in responding to recommendations for reform.

Daniel Andrews brushed past integrity concerns in his government.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

“They’re not in the cabinet room,” Andrews said. “If you want to get into the cabinet room, well you’ll need to go and get yourself elected.”

The then premier was expressing a growing frustration about the encroachment of high-minded legal figures-turned-integrity chiefs and experts into the business of democratically elected MPs.

He and his inner sanctum see themselves as accountable to Victorian voters who have elected them three times running, not to former judges and others appointed by elected MPs.

As a self-styled ‘can do’ premier famously more concerned with results than process, integrity never seemed a priority issue.

By the time he retired on Tuesday, Andrews had not personally been accused of any serious wrong-doing or black-letter corruption.

But from the Red Shirts scandal stemming from the 2014 election through investigations by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) of branch-stacking, cosy deals with unions and Labor MPs linked to allegedly corrupt developer John Woodman, Andrews has never been far from controversy.

Like most long-serving governments, the integrity cloud hanging over this administration has only darkened. At the November state poll, relations between Andrews and the main integrity agencies were deteriorating.

That situation worsened with the emergence of a letter from former IBAC head Redlich to parliament claiming the then Labor-dominated Integrity and Oversight Committee had sought to undermine IBAC’s work and “dig up dirt” on the agency.

Andrews leaves Government House in Melbourne after handing in his resignation.Credit: Jason South

Integrity experts were aghast at the lack of respect shown when Andrews said he would not respond to “someone who used to do a job [who has] written a letter that apparently says a whole bunch of stuff”. In fact, Redlich was the IBAC commissioner when he wrote the letter.

When Redlich appeared before the integrity committee in July hoping to identify reforms needed to improve the integrity system, he instead faced an organised grilling by Labor MPs over his time as head of IBAC, including questions about alleged bullying of staff.

Glass, the Ombudsman, has also grown unpopular with Andrews and his team, especially after her December 2020 report into the government’s COVID-19 lockdown of North Melbourne and Flemington public housing towers. Glass found that the government had violated Victorian human rights laws, and called (unsuccessfully) on it to apologise to public tenants.

She has been outspoken in her criticisms of Andrews’ integrity record, including over the government’s lack of action on key recommendations from her Operation Watts joint investigation with IBAC, tabled in July 2022.

This month Glass noted there had been few “signs of life” on reform, including the recommended establishment of a parliamentary ethics committee.

Labor has advanced on some integrity fronts, notably its 2016 widening of the jurisdiction of IBAC, widely regarded as a lame duck body in its original Baillieu-era form. It also introduced long-overdue reform of donation laws in 2018, which Andrews (disputably) claimed gave Victoria the toughest donations regime in the country.

In response to the furore over the Redlich letter early this year, the government also changed arrangements for the formerly Labor-dominated integrity committee, relinquishing its dominant position. The opposition and crossbench are now in majority via the new Green chair’s casting vote.

But Andrews’ arm was forced when the opposition and Greens threatened to join forces to demand an inquiry into Labor’s alleged suppression of the Redlich letter.

As has been so often the case, when it comes to integrity Andrews seemed dragged to, rather than a champion of, reform.

Andrews has resisted action on what Redlich calls “soft” or “grey corruption”, like the centralisation of executive power, the growing influence of advisers and staffers, and jobs for Labor mates.

Still outstanding is government action on a raft of integrity agency and experts’ calls, including the further tightening of rules around donations and lobbying and the further widening of IBAC’s jurisdiction.

And yet to be finalised is IBAC’s Operation Richmond, which is an investigation of negotiations between the government and the United Firefighters Union. If it is ever tabled, Richmond has the potential to be the most damaging of the IBAC investigations to date.

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