Wednesday, 3 May 2023

Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission

Operation Daintree: Special Report

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (17:04): Today I want to draw the chamber’s attention to the Operation Daintree report, tabled out of session a week or so ago but tabled formally this Tuesday. It is a very important report. It is a report that lays out a government in chaos, a government that is using public money as an ATM for its own purposes. It feels it can reach in. This applies to the Premier, it applies to the former health ministers and it seems to apply to the advisers who were involved in Operation Daintree, both in the Minister for Health’s office and in the Premier’s office. It is very clear that what happened here is that some special commitment was made to the Health Workers Union and that commitment was actioned. And we had the outrageous situation of an adviser in the Premier’s office through an adviser in the health minister’s office directing staff in the then Department of Health and Human Services on how they would proceed with the procurement process of a training tender. This is actually corruption, pure and simple. It is the use of public money for nefarious purposes – for satisfying a range of other objectives which are not the same as the training objectives that are laid out.

I hasten to add here that the Premier’s memory again has become a serious problem. We saw with the Jennifer Coate inquiry into hotel quarantine the Premier’s memory – not only his memory in that case, but the memory of a whole series of senior bureaucrats – seemed to be in real trouble. There must have been something in the water over at 1TP – 1 Treasury Place – because it seemed to affect a large number of people, that memory problem. We saw this re-emerge in the Daintree report, with the Premier unable to remember the details of a more than $1 million contract – a $1.2 million contract. He had met with the head of the HWU, and then a decision was made and there were instructions given via these ministerial staff. This was not a ministerial decision; the minister stepped back from this, but ministerial staff appear to have made the decision. Whether they were acting on instruction from the Premier, because he had met with the Health Workers Union just a few days before, or whether they were acting alone is hard to discern – but that is part of the point here. The truth is that ministerial accountability is the bedrock of the Westminster system, and in this case you have got ministers who are stepping back and claiming not to know.

The Premier was confronted with evidence by IBAC, and he had to change his testimony under oath. He had to change that testimony. He had to concede that his initial recollection was not quite right, and he had to backtrack on that. Again, this is the sign of corrupt behaviour in the worst possible way. He is trying to cover his tracks. He is a Premier who I think people should be very concerned about. He is using public money in this way. It is almost like the government feels they can reach into the Treasury and use public money like an ATM, just take money out for their own party political purposes. We saw it with red shirts. We saw the corrupt behaviour that occurred with red shirts, where they took at least $380,000 of public money and used that to campaign to get Labor elected in 2014 – public money stolen.

Public money was stolen, and this is no different in essence. In this case you have got a bogus, phoney contract signed – a contract that the department said was against the interests of the Victorian community. They have taken that money. They have stolen that money, that is what they have done, and then used it for political purposes that are not in the community interest – and that is what IBAC has said.

So you have got a Premier who has got this chronic amnesia. What is going on here? The truth of the matter is he knows but he does not want to say. That is actually the truth of the matter. Everyone knows what is going on here. It is like the kid at home who is caught doing something wrong and then blames Mr Nobody. That is what the Premier is like on this. He is a crook.