Wednesday, 3 May 2023

Grievance debate

Government integrity

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (16:01): I grieve for the people of Victoria. Corruption is now the new normal in Victoria. Last week we saw a red-letter day in Victoria when the Ombudsman in an unprecedented way spoke about the character and integrity of this government and its Premier. The Ombudsman said in relation to her recent report around corruption in Victoria:

It was not an educational report, it was a damning report about misconduct of ministerial advisers and ministerial responsibility for those advisers.

We know that the Ombudsman was forced to intervene in a way we have never seen before – in a way that Victorians have never seen before – because the Premier casually disregarded a report that had found what we are sadly coming to see as grey corruption in Victoria. But let us not call it ‘grey corruption’. It is a mistake to diminish it in terminology. The Ombudsman has found corruption in Victoria – and not for the first time, but I will come to that. Her work and her comments publicly – her unprecedented comments – come on the back of other findings and other comments from eminent people, very eminent people like the then IBAC Commissioner, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the former Chief Commissioner of Police and former Supreme Court judges. The findings go to the heart of the operation of the government of Victoria and the way that it uses taxpayer money, the way that it operates – the kickbacks, the favours, the mates deals – and we have now seen report after report uncover that behaviour and a Premier who so flippantly disregards that behaviour. So I grieve on behalf of Victorians for what we are now seeing, in that corruption is now the new normal in Victoria.

Only this afternoon, when these issues were raised with the Premier and he was asked for an update on the Ombudsman’s recent report, he brushed away timeliness of acting upon them. He brushed it away in typical style, saying that ordinary, hardworking Victorians do not care about implementation of corruption findings. How extraordinary it is to have an Ombudsman reflect so damningly on a government and damningly on the Premier, in questioning his views on corruption and integrity, but then for the Premier to double down on those findings and brush away any need to implement changes in the way this government operates this afternoon – only today. It is outrageous. So I grieve for Victorians and what we are living through – a government that will be only too happy to see the back of Daniel Andrews, the Premier of Victoria.

The Ombudsman’s intervention follows, only at the end of last year, the IBAC former commissioner writing to the Speaker and President of this place to allege very, very serious allegations of corrupt behaviour and call for urgent attention. We are now some six months later and sadly, despite a number of attempts to take on board the proposals, suggestions and improvements that have been put by these eminent people, they have been disregarded time and time again. But the Ombudsman’s calls come on the back of the commissioner’s unprecedented letter. So we have got an Ombudsman who has made an unprecedented intervention calling into question the character of the Premier and an IBAC Commissioner who has effectively said that corruption is real in Victoria and in this government.

There are other instances which many in this place will have read much about: Operation Lansdowne, an IBAC report into corruption in relation to V/Line contracts – serious corruption; Operation Watts, which was an investigation into Labor branch stacking; Operation Clara into the Victorian Planning Authority – I will leave that there; Operation Daintree, into procurement processes, which I have just spoken about; corruption risks associated with major transport infrastructure projects; Operation Richmond, on government dealings with the United Firefighters Union; Operation Sandon, on serious corrupt conduct in relation to planning and property development decisions at the Casey council; and a second United Firefighters Union probe. There are eight examples from just one body, IBAC, and their reports into corruption in Victoria.

And though words are used, adjectives are used, to describe that corruption and eminent people have talked about the need to lower the threshold of what is corrupt, Victorians know that in those instances corruption was found. Victorians know that the government has allowed wrongdoing. That is why I grieve for Victorians and for the behaviour of this government, because corruption is now the new normal in Victoria. Further to those reports, the Ombudsman has delivered the investigation into red shirts, which I am sure every Victorian has heard about, and the Auditor-General released a report in April 2020 in relation to advertising campaigns that breached legislation – self-serving reports that breached legislation. The Auditor-General in September 2021 obviously released their report into hotel quarantine, which I will speak to later. But that is 11 examples – 11 quite recent examples – into corruption in this state. The litany is long and that is not exhaustive, but those are 11 serious, real examples when it comes to taxpayer money and decisions that have been made by this government and by staff – their behaviour – with taxpayer money.

But Victorians have most recently heard of the Daintree report, which the Premier dismissed as soon as he possibly could, but what did it find? We have heard a lot about the Daintree report, but what did it find? What it found is the health minister’s office exerted pressure on the department staff to award a contract. It also found that an adviser in the office of the then health minister and an advisor in the office of the Premier intruded into the department’s management of the contract in ways favourable to the union and against the public interest. Well, that is corruption by any definition. It may not meet the current legislative threshold, but what we are seeing is out-and-out corruption in this state.

The report found a number of other things. It was not an educational report. It talked about the continuing decline in standards. It talked about the phenomenon of grey corruption. These are direct quotes. It talked about engagement in conduct that is inappropriate at best and corrupt at worst: ‘A culture that permits improper political interference’. It rightly pointed out that the Premier is accountable to this Parliament for that improper conduct, and that is why we are here today: to grieve for the people of Victoria for what they are witnessing from this Premier and the behaviour that they are seeing.

The report found a number of important recommendations, and the opposition was swift in developing a bill to implement those important recommendations, because we strongly believe that when a person of impeccable character and expertise provides insights into ways that government can work better, the first thing that we would do is read through those recommendations and work out how we can bring them into operation in Victoria as quick as we can. The Leader of the Opposition has been the first to ensure that we have a plan to provide people in Victoria with the confidence that we will take up those recommendations and implement them – in stark contrast to a Premier who has today dismissed any need to implement those changes in any meaningful or timely way.

But does it surprise us? The Premier has form in the way that he deals with these issues. We saw in the Daintree report a number of instances where the Premier’s integrity was called into question, and if you refer to the report itself, there is the usual instance of the Premier having no recollection or not being aware of activities. In fact when asked about behaviour like being part of meetings where decisions were being made – that he was in – he had no recollection. Of course he did not. I do not believe him and I do not think anyone believes him, but he had no recollection – another instance. When I got the report the first thing I looked for was the first instance of the Premier having no recollection, because I knew that the Premier would respond in that way. And it is not the first instance where he has used the ‘I can’t recall’ when his integrity is in question. He did it with Operation Sandon, which was a report into land dealings and the allegedly corrupt property developer John Woodman, who might be known to the former health minister, who provided him a property – the former health minister provided him the renter. The Premier had dinner with property developer John Woodman and, when asked as part of the IBAC investigation, could not recall having any discussion at his dumpling dinner. He also could not recall whether he gave over his phone number. That was not the only instance. Operation Richmond – what did he do when he was talking about the firefighter union boss Peter Marshall? What did he talk about? ‘I can’t recall.’ Over 800 people died as a result of hotel quarantine. Was he part of the decision-making process to have private security? Almost 30 times: ‘I can’t recall’. In every single instance where meaningful decisions were made that he was part of, he cannot recall.

What we saw today that was most terrifying was that the behaviour of the Premier has now bled into who would be the next Premier of Victoria. When asked serious questions of integrity about having illegal activity on certain government contracts and having associations with known standover men, the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure refused to even respond. So we have the Premier-in-waiting sitting at the table and we know that that member has the same character issues, the same issues of integrity, and Victorians deserve to have that probed. They deserve to know that the person that the Premier has anointed is dealing with crooks and the department is advertising the businesses of a crook. It is outrageous. So I grieve for the people of Victoria, and I grieve for the behaviour and character of both its leader and its Premier-in-waiting.