Victoria’s ombudsman probing Labor mates in Andrews public service

The probe comes as one former Labor MP claims: ‘Walking into a Victorian government building is now like walking into a Labor Party state conference.’

Premier Daniel Andrews.Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

Victoria’s Ombudsman has confirmed she is investigating claims the Andrews government has stacked the public service with Labor mates.

Deborah Glass’s office on Monday said an investigation into the politicisation of the public service was underway.

The confirmation comes after the Ombudsman told the Herald Sun concerns about the issue, raised by several MPs, needed to be taken seriously.

Ms Glass also renewed calls for an independent body to be set up to investigate allegations of wrongdoing against MPs, saying the current framework was insufficient.

A parliamentary referral moved in February by former Labor powerbroker Adem Somyurek asked Ms Glass to investigate a range of issues, including Premier Daniel Andrews’s role in “designing, propagating and facilitating” Victorian Labor’s “red shirts” rort.

At the time, Ms Glass indicated that while she had already investigated the “red shirts” scheme — finding in 2018 that 21 MPs had misused $388,000 of taxpayers’ money to employ Labor campaigners during the 2014 election campaign — other issues included in the referral may warrant further investigation.

“I will consider the extent to which the matters subject of the referral have already been investigated or are currently being investigated,” Ms Glass said in February.

“The public needs to have confidence that public resources are not being misused for political ends, and, as always, any investigation I lead will be independent and based on evidence.”

In her comments to Monday’s Herald Sun, Ms Glass said that while “red shirts” had been investigated, the politicisation of the public service warranted attention.

“That is a new element; that is something I have not yet ­investigated,” she said.

“I think it is very interesting that parliament has asked me to investigate the politicisation of the public service.”

Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass.

She also renewed calls for reform to Victoria’s legislative framework, saying it was insufficient for investigating MPs.

“There needs to be a proper independent investigative body that can investigate our members of parliament – one that actually investigates MPs’ conduct and standards and ­reports publicly,” Ms Glass said.

“To expect the Ombudsman and IBAC (independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission) to be the mechanism for doing this is not the way to do it.”

Ms Glass said IBAC’s threshold to launch a corruption probe was “very high” while her own jurisdiction did not extend to MPs, except in extraordinary circumstances.

Her office confirmed to The Australian that an investigation into the politicisation of the Victorian public service was already underway, but declined to provide further comment.

Former Victorian Labor member now Independent, Adem Somyurek. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

Mr Somyurek — who is himself being investigated by IBAC over branch-stacking allegations — welcomed news the Ombudsman was “taking on this very important issue”.

“An impartial public service providing frank and fearless objective expert advice is a fundamental to Westminster system of government and to good governance generally,” Mr Somyurek said.

“While political appointments are entitled to be based on political considerations the public service must be all about merit based employment.

“If political appointments are substandard the individual politicians suffer. If the public service are substandard the entire community suffers.

“Under Andrews the Victorian public service has been hollowed out transformed into a spoils system through Andrews stacking in Labor Party activists.

“Due to Andrews’s stacking of the public service walking into a Victorian government building is now like walking into a Labor Party state conference.”

Now crossbench MP Kaushaliya Vaghela sparked her own expulsion from the Victorian ALP when she crossed the floor to support her former factional ally Mr Somyurek in moving the referral in February.

Liberal Democrats MP David Limbrick spoke in favour of the referral, arguing the politicisation of Victoria’s public service was “potentially a serious, long-term and corrosive problem”.

“I think all Victorians would prefer that our health departments are managed by health experts and our electricity grid is managed by energy experts, rather than experts in politics,” he said.

“I suspect that some of the failures we experienced during the pandemic might be attributed to political considerations overriding expertise. It should be looked into.”

Nine Newspapers reported in August that more than 30 senior Victorian public servants are former political advisers to Mr Andrews or his ministers.