IBAC: Is Daniel Andrews running from the past to preserve his future?

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: David Geraghty

Anyone who has had a crack in their early years will get a reputation. Just ask Daniel Andrews.

Rightly or wrongly, Andrews is often linked to factional activities in Melbourne’s southeast for the Socialist Left.

The pertinent question is what exactly did he do as a younger man and would it pass the test of modern-day political decency?

The Victorian Premier is using the state’s anti-corruption commission inquiry into Labor to prevent answering some very basic questions. Things like was he a branch stacker? Which seems easy enough to answer.

But no, Andrews was arguing again on Wednesday that he doesn’t want to cut across the work of IBAC or get into a debate with his former cabinet colleague Adem Somyurek.

Somyurek is low hanging fruit for IBAC because they have him on videotape, whereas Andrews is a much more important figure whose factional antics are somewhat historic.

Speak to ALP powerbrokers who were around 20 to 30 years ago and the consensus is that Andrews was going “hammer and tongs” with factional work before he entered parliament and while working in party headquarters.

These are matters of public interest but like all these things are harder to prove categorically after the passage of time.

IBAC’s terms of reference for these public hearings are narrow and relate to one part of the Victorian Right as a so-called “case study”. It means that on the most literal reading, there might be little possibility of Andrews being torn apart by the findings, although we don’t know what may or may not have happened in any private interrogations.

IBAC is investigating whether taxpayer-funded staff and MPs engaged in serious corrupt conduct by wrongly directing ministerial and electorate office staff to perform party-political work.

And also whether public money was improperly directed towards community associations with party-political connections. All of which is worthy and justifiable.

But it doesn’t take away from the principle that the most senior politician in the state may have inside knowledge of historical wrongdoing that helped contribute to the party’s present-day culture.

Which should make him a very important person of interest for investigators, even if only to fill in the dots in Melbourne’s southeast.

Let’s not forget the reason why IBAC is there. The commission was formed after years of debate about real and imagined official corruption, in no small part because of the handling of the gangland war and dysfunction in Victoria Police.

Now we have a federal MP who has admitted stacking branches and no fewer than four state ministers brought down by internal Labor affairs.

IBAC was given wide powers to force people to tell the truth. It doesn’t seem unreasonable at all to call Andrews to give evidence under oath.

I am not saying Andrews has done anything wrong, but he needs to answer questions under oath and relevant to the current inquiry.

It looks like he is desperately running to prevent the past catching up to him.

Which is an untenable position for a premier to be in.