By Annika Smethurst
Outgoing Ombudsman Deborah Glass says she became locked in a battle for independence with the state government which soured their relationship over her decade-long term.
In her final report as the state’s public sector watchdog, Glass has also sought to explain the fracturing of relations between her office and the government under Daniel Andrews, despite the pair having had only one “direct conversation” during his time as premier.
Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass last December.Credit: Luis Ascui
Glass said decisions Andrews made after he was first elected created a “legacy of fear”, but she conceded that tensions were exacerbated by her decision to challenge the state government in the High Court in 2017, after attempts to prevent her from investigating allegations Labor MPs had misused taxpayer-funded allowances during the 2014 Victorian election.
The challenge had become a “battle for my independence, with gender overtones”, Glass said.
“Whether the conflict was perceived or real, I have no doubt it affected my relationship with ministers, with the public, and with parliament itself,” she said.
As ombudsman, Glass was charged with investigating complaints into government departments, local councils and statutory authorities. She delivered almost 100 reports, including major probes into decisions made by the Andrews government on COVID-19 lockdowns, branch stacking within the Victorian ALP, the creeping politicisation of the state’s public service and 10 reports into the prison system.
As the number of reports critical of the Andrews government grew over the past decade, the relationship between Glass and the government appeared to sour, with Daniel Andrews lashing the ombudsman’s report, released in late 2023, which found evidence of “creeping politicisation” and a “culture of fear” in the state’s public service.
A year after her appointment, Glass took the state government to the Supreme Court over whether she had jurisdiction to investigate MPs as part of a probe into an alleged misuse of taxpayer-funded resources for political campaigning at the 2014 election. The challenge ended up in the High Court.
Glass, who is Victoria’s first female ombudsman, said she had no real desire to investigate such a “political hot potato” but had an even greater aversion to the government releasing advice claiming she did not have the jurisdiction to investigate MPs.
“This had now become a battle for my independence, with gender overtones. I was an independent officer of parliament. How would it look if I simply bowed to the government, when my male predecessor had stared them down, and other legal arguments had been made, including in parliament, that I did have jurisdiction?”
Glass said that despite having “some productive relationships with ministers”, the case ultimately affected her relationship with the government for the rest of her term.
Premier Jacinta Allan said on Monday that she had met Glass twice during the ombudsman’s 10-year tenure and would meet the next ombudsman, who steps into the role on Saturday, in the coming weeks.
“But I think it’s important to say it would be a formality and not something that would be a matter of course,” Allan said. “This is an independent office and I want to respect the independence of that office.”
In her final report, which came days after the government walked back plans to give children the presumption of bail, Glass criticised it for failing to introduce independent oversight and inspections of the state’s prisons, and pursue “brave” reforms in the wider justice sector.
Deborah Glass said decisions Daniel Andrews made after he was elected premier created a “legacy of fear”.Credit: Wayne Taylor
“Real reform was, and is still, needed in the wider justice sector. But this requires a government not driven by headlines that all too often have triggered a knee-jerk tightening of bail, parole and sentencing laws,” Glass wrote.
“History is full of examples of enlightened governments taking brave steps and leading public opinion. Without them, we would still have public hangings, Dickensian prisons and sweatshops, not to mention institutionalised discrimination against women and minorities. Victoria was once a leader in justice reform. Perhaps one day we will be one again.”
Asked on Monday if Victoria’s recent bail changes were a knee-jerk reaction, Allan said: “I would take, respectfully, a different view. Policy matters are carefully thought through.”
Opposition Leader John Pesutto praised Glass for providing a “frank assessment” of the Labor government’s attitude to scrutiny and accountability.
“The story Deborah Glass tells in her outgoing comments is one of a government that does everything it can to stonewall. Everything it can to bury the truth,” he said.
The Liberal leader promised to increase funding for integrity agencies should the Coalition win government in 2026.
Before taking on the role of ombudsman, Melbourne-raised Glass worked around the globe, helping to reshape Hong Kong’s securities and futures markets after the 1987 crash, and investigating an alleged cover-up following England’s 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster.
She said “politics seemed irrelevant” when she was appointed ombudsman in March 2014 by Liberal then-premier Denis Napthine.
Eight months after her appointment, Labor won the election and Glass said she had wrongly assumed the new government, under Andrews, would be more interested in justice reform and supportive of her work.
“Although I have never been politically affiliated, I am unashamedly an advocate for social justice …and I thought this would be a government more interested in justice reform, and supportive of my work. How wrong I was,” Glass said.
Instead, she described what she called the “cold shower of political reality”, which she said hit when Andrews sacked the state’s top public servant, Andrew Tongue, a day after Labor won office. She said this created a “legacy of fear” across the bureaucracy.
Eamonn Moran, KC.
Weeks later, Glass met Andrews’ new hand-picked public service chief, Chris Eccles, to discuss budgetary constraints and was told fixing the ombudsman’s funding was “not on the list of government priorities”.
Glass said she had remained hopeful that, with time, “an alignment of values and interests” might strengthen the relationship between her office and the government.
“After all, didn’t we all want to see improvements in public administration? To encourage the public sector to learn from its complaints? To support integrity in public officials?”
In a parting shot at the government, Glass renewed calls for greater access to cabinet documents, describing the current system as a shield which is “increasingly being used to protect government secrecy at the expense of accountability”.
In response to the report, Allan thanked Glass for her service and said the government had accepted 95 per cent of recommendations made by her during her time as ombudsman.
In the report tabled on Monday, Glass also addressed her refusal to co-operate with Eamonn Moran, KC, the boss of the Victorian Inspectorate – which monitors Victoria’s integrity agencies – whom she had previously accused of bias and abuses of power while he scrutinised her office.
“The inspector and I have a history that must remain confidential, as a result of which I do not believe either of us can make objective judgments about the other,” she wrote.
“But while personalities are an unavoidable factor in the relationship between overseer and overseen, conflict is less likely to arise if legislation provides for both discretion by, and oversight of, the overseer. The Ombudsman Act provides this safeguard for agencies in my jurisdiction, but the legislation governing the Inspectorate provides for neither.”
In response, the Inspectorate, which received a copy of the report ahead of its release, said, “differences of opinion about approaches to compliance are inevitable between overseer and overseen.
“But such differences should not cloud the judgment of senior public officers. The relationship between the Victorian Inspectorate and the ombudsman is analogous to that between the ombudsman and any of the agencies within her jurisdiction.”
Glass will finish on Friday. Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission chief executive Marlo Baragwanath is to take over as the next Victorian ombudsman.
With Broede Carmody
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