Victorian IBAC threatening a political firestorm
Victoria’s corruption busters have been secretly investigating dealings between the Andrews government and the firefighters union for more than two years.
Peter Marshall is raging like a wildfire. Blindsided by the government’s appointment of Liverpool fire and rescue boss Dan Stephens as Victoria’s new fire services chief, the United Firefighters Union head jumps on Raf Epstein’s ABC radio show and hits the lights and sirens.
“The truth will come out about Daniel Andrews and James Merlino … they made a number of promises and they will come out in the near future,” he says, accusing the Premier and his Emergency Services Minister of “selling out” firefighters by appointing the “union-busting” Stephens.
“The promises will come out closer to the election.”
Epstein asks Marshall about long-running rumours he secretly taped a private meeting with Andrews. He is asked six times if he recorded the Premier. Each time, he ducks, choosing to fuel the rumour of a recording.
“You better ask Dan Andrews that and not me,” he says.
In that interview on April 18, 2018, Marshall sent Andrews a very direct message; if you betray me and my members, I’ll come after you, even if you’re the Premier. The general view was that since 2014, Andrews had bent over backwards to give the UFU pretty much everything it wanted, yet here was Marshall torching one of the closest union-government alliances in the state’s history.
Seemingly as a payback for UFU support during the 2014 election campaign, Andrews brought his government to the brink of disaster in 2016 by gutting the volunteer CFA and handing the UFU more operational authority over the rival organisation. Generous pay, allowances and conditions were also offered.
Labor’s then emergency services minister Jane Garrett opposed the pro-UFU position. So Andrews forced her out of cabinet. Senior CFA executives and board members were also thrown overboard by the Premier.
Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten has admitted the crisis damaged his 2016 federal election campaign in Victoria, as it was fought out in the midst of this ALP-UFU-CFA crisis.
Yet here was Marshall threatening on live radio to destroy Andrews. Later, the union chief would issue a statement saying there was no secret recording.
But the damage was done.
The interview came to the attention of IBAC, Victoria’s secretive anti-corruption authority. Whistleblowers also provided material and statements to the organisation. About the middle of 2018, six months before the November state election, IBAC started sniffing around the relationship between the Andrews government and the UFU.
Operation Richmond was off and running.
Given Andrews had personally intervened to sideline Garrett in her negotiations with Marshall in 2016 and held a private meeting with the union chief, the Andrews-Marshall dealings were on the IBAC whiteboard. Over the next six months, including the tense four weeks of the 2018 election, the investigation slowly built, gathering information and interviewing witnesses.
Under the IBAC Act, once an investigation has commenced, the watchdog has a powerful array of intelligence-gathering tools including phone taps, secret hearings, undercover surveillance and the powers to conduct raids, seize documents, computers and electronic communication records such as texts and emails. But IBAC is a (sometimes painfully) methodical organisation, both culturally and legally. It can’t legally deploy all of the above tools from day one.
As an investigation progresses, it has to cross various legal thresholds. Only once these have been crossed do more powerful intelligence-gathering tools kick in. In this case, at various points, there has been debate within IBAC as to whether the unit running Operation Richmond had done enough to win approval to take the probe to the next stage.
News of its secret investigation didn’t break during the state election and Andrews was elected with an increased majority. As 2019 started, it seemed like he had put the UFU crisis behind him. Stephens, started work and seemed to be settling in. (He resigned within a year. A difficult relationship with Marshall was blamed)
On July 27, 2019, more than a year after it launched, news of Operation Richmond broke in a front-page Herald Sun report. Before publication, the newspaper submitted questions to IBAC:
Does the investigation include the conduct and behaviour of Premier Daniel Andrews and senior ministers?
Have you conducted secret hearings?
Have you been using powers ... to seize documents and intercept phones?
Can you confirm whether current and former fire services personnel have been subpoenaed?
IBAC didn’t deny any of the scenarios, simply stating: “For legal and operational reasons, IBAC is unable to comment.”
While it wasn’t commenting publicly, IBAC was busy crossing the legal thresholds to expand its probe and use more of its powers. Subpoenas started landing on doorsteps. Figures familiar with the 2016 CFA dispute and EBA negotiations were questioned under oath behind closed doors. Labor MPs, current and former political advisers and public servants were among those questioned in secretive hearings.
IBAC attended various addresses, in 2019 and 2020, collecting a trove of material.
Some sources believe IBAC has tapped phones, raising the potential that conversations between UFU figures and Labor MPs may have been recorded.
IBAC didn’t deny on Wednesday it had used its phone-tapping powers: “As a matter of practice, IBAC does not comment on whether it has a complaint or investigation before it.”
The Andrews government survived the 2016 CFA crisis. Don’t worry that this probe has dragged on for more than two years, largely buried from sight. It has the potential to ignite a fresh firestorm over government dealings with the UFU, and even Andrews’s dealings with Marshall.
IBAC’s agents have been very busy.
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