Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamiot.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday August six, twenty twenty six. Federal Education Minister
Speaker 1: Jason Clair has thrown his support behind pen and paper
Speaker 1: learning in Australian schools. He says Australia's falling behind due
Speaker 1: to a drift away from old school teaching methods. That
Speaker 1: story's live right now at the Australian dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: It's the bombshell report sending shockwaves through Victorian politics after
Speaker 1: an eight year investigation, findings by Operation Richmond into dealings
Speaker 1: between the Andrews government and the United Firefighters Union are
Speaker 1: out in the open, and though no findings of corruption
Speaker 1: have been made, it's creating a massive headache for Victoria's
Speaker 1: new premier, who's preparing to hit the campaign trail. Victorian
Speaker 1: editor Damon Johnston is here in just a moment.
Speaker 2: This agreement was negotiated with Congennings in a back room.
Speaker 3: It was endorsed by Andrew's cabinet.
Speaker 1: This is what Peter Marshall told a Victorian ministerial advisor
Speaker 1: in a bugged phone call in twenty nineteen. It's been
Speaker 1: re enacted by a voice.
Speaker 3: Actor.
Speaker 1: Marshall is the boss of Victoria's United Firefighters Union and
Speaker 1: the agreement he was referring to was made in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen between the union and the state labor government, led
Speaker 1: at the time by Dan Andrews, regarding pay and conditions
Speaker 1: for its thousands of Victorian members. The call had been
Speaker 1: bugged by members of an investigative team for Victoria's anti
Speaker 1: corruption watchdog, the Independent Broad Based Anti Corruption Commission or IBACK,
Speaker 1: who were acting on a complaint that something fishy was
Speaker 1: going on in the negotiations between the Andrews government and
Speaker 1: the uf US leadership. Damon Johnston is The Australian's Victorian editor,
Speaker 1: and Damon, we're talking today about osaga that's dragged on,
Speaker 1: as you wrote for The Australian, for longer than World
Speaker 1: War II. Take me back to the moment in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen when a complaint from a senior labor minister in
Speaker 1: Victoria kicked off the investigation that's now known as Operation Richmond.
Speaker 3: That's right. It has dragged on for longer than World
Speaker 3: War II, which is extraordinary. The matter is under investigation
Speaker 3: in fact relate to April May June of twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: so that's more than ten years ago. But it took
Speaker 3: another two years for a very courageous labor insider who
Speaker 3: we can't identify for legal reasons, to blow the whistle
Speaker 3: on Dan Andrews and Peter Marshall, and that happened in
Speaker 3: late twenty eighteen. By twenty nineteen, IBAQ was ready to
Speaker 3: raid and it did. It raided the U a few
Speaker 3: headquarters and a range of private homes. And that said
Speaker 3: in train at the time when that became public, I
Speaker 3: thought this was going to be a very public and
Speaker 3: very quick anti corruption investigation. In fact, it was the
Speaker 3: exact opposite. It was very secret and very long. We
Speaker 3: finally got a look at the special report into Operation Richmond,
Speaker 3: and whilst on one level it didn't find corrupt conduct,
Speaker 3: it did make some scathing comments about the culture and
Speaker 3: the actions of the former premier, Dan Andrews and some
Speaker 3: of his ministers and Peter Marshall, the head of the UFU.
Speaker 3: Now this all goes back to twenty sixteen and the
Speaker 3: hot political crisis that was engulfing the then Andrews government,
Speaker 3: and that was over a paying conditions deal with the
Speaker 3: United Firefighters Union. The then emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett
Speaker 3: refused to sign up to what the union wanted, so
Speaker 3: the union went behind her back. Dan agreed to hold
Speaker 3: side talks and sent his people to talk to the union,
Speaker 3: cut Garrett out of the action, and the rest is history.
Speaker 3: Garrett then resigned in protest. Dan forced the deal through
Speaker 3: no doubt cost the tax payers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Speaker 3: It destroyed in many ways the independence of the Volunteer
Speaker 3: Country Fire Authority and resulted in this report eight years later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Operation Richmond has been shrouded in secrecy for the
Speaker 1: better part of a decade. As you said, what has
Speaker 1: been the crux of its findings against people like Dan Andrews,
Speaker 1: Peter Marshall and the high ranking elected officials involved.
Speaker 3: Here it's important to note that ibac's report did not
Speaker 3: make any findings of corruption by any of the key players.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons it did this, though, is worth noting.
Speaker 3: IBAC does talk in this report about the fact that
Speaker 3: under its legislation, corrupt conduct is defined as a crime,
Speaker 3: so it has to constitute potential crime for IBAC to
Speaker 3: say this is corrupt conduct. It's a very high bar
Speaker 3: to cross. A lot of the other integrity agencies around
Speaker 3: the country don't have that high bar. Corrupt conduct doesn't
Speaker 3: have to constitute a crime, so we have to acknowledge that.
Speaker 3: But it was scathing in many of its findings. In short,
Speaker 3: it found that senior members of the Andrews government, ministers,
Speaker 3: public servants had engaged in serious and concerning conduct. IBAC
Speaker 3: found that senior members of the government acted contrary to
Speaker 3: establish policies, procedures, codes of conduct and conventions, was including
Speaker 3: the former premier, and that Peter Marshall, the head of
Speaker 3: the UFU, was afforded privileged access to the ministers, and
Speaker 3: that ultimately this enabled him to cut a better deal.
Speaker 3: And this is a taxpayer funded deal, So we're talking
Speaker 3: about hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds here.
Speaker 3: So this is a genuine political scandal. I think Operation
Speaker 3: Richmond is important for another reason. It actually doubles as
Speaker 3: a historic record of exactly how Dan Andrews stuffed the state.
Speaker 3: So the very failings across integrity and process, the culture,
Speaker 3: those failings that they talk about in the context of
Speaker 3: the dealings with the United Firefighters Union and are exactly
Speaker 3: the same failings that have led Victoria to be on
Speaker 3: the brink of the two hundred billion dollar debt, a
Speaker 3: corrupted big build program that has allowed the CFMAU to
Speaker 3: run rife.
Speaker 1: The government's gone on the attack over the allegations that
Speaker 1: fifteen billion dollars of taxpayer money found its way into
Speaker 1: the hands of criminals via government building sites.
Speaker 3: This is what happens when you have no process, you
Speaker 3: are willing to do anything to deliver your outcome. And
Speaker 3: I think the real value in the Operation Richmond report
Speaker 3: isn't so much the findings relating to the UFU, basically
Speaker 3: what it says about how Dan Andrews does politics and
Speaker 3: the consequences of his style of crash or crash through politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Dan Andrews said in a statement released on Wednesday
Speaker 1: afternoon that the allegations against him are baseless, and he
Speaker 1: reiterated that no findings of corruption had been made against
Speaker 1: him or anybody else. Operation Richmond made a number of
Speaker 1: recommendations in the final report, including that integrity and accountability
Speaker 1: standards should be implemented for ministers. Did we really need
Speaker 1: a multimillion dollar, eight year investigation to know that our
Speaker 1: elected representatives should be acting with integrity?
Speaker 3: It's laughable, isn't it? But this was Dan's way of operating.
Speaker 3: He cut corners and you can see from the evidence
Speaker 3: in this report he went behind his own minister's back.
Speaker 3: That's hardly operating with integrity. But you wouldn't think a
Speaker 3: black and white clause had to be written into a
Speaker 3: ministerial job description to operate with integrity. But let's see
Speaker 3: Ben Carroll has staked his premiership and the possibility of
Speaker 3: winning the next election about restoring integrity.
Speaker 2: This is a report, it was ten years in the making.
Speaker 2: I was not in the cabinet when all of these
Speaker 2: matters began. This is poor behavior, it is intolerable. I
Speaker 2: will take action. I will accept the recommendations and get
Speaker 2: on with implementing it.
Speaker 3: So there's a few people there with still a lot
Speaker 3: to lose this. Former ministers who have had adverse commentary
Speaker 3: about them have got taxpayer funded jobs. They have to
Speaker 3: be under review. A senior public servant has stood a
Speaker 3: site over the commentary Iback has made about him. So
Speaker 3: while Dan's long gone and there are no corruption findings
Speaker 3: about him, this does represent a scathing assessment of politics
Speaker 3: Dan Andrews's style. Make no mistake this condemns his brand
Speaker 3: of politics.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Ben Carroll there. He's been in the top
Speaker 1: job for only just over a week. He's four months
Speaker 1: out from an election, and he's already committed to a
Speaker 1: Royal commission into Victoria's construction sector. It was suggested to
Speaker 1: him at a press conference he gave on Wednesday morning
Speaker 1: that he had arranged that press conference to maybe deflect
Speaker 1: from the findings of the Operation Richmond report. He denied that.
Speaker 1: But how much of a headache does this create for
Speaker 1: him over the next four months in the run up
Speaker 1: to the state election.
Speaker 3: This is a significant challenge for the new premier. He's
Speaker 3: got less than four months to convince Victorians that he
Speaker 3: deserves their trust to manage the state for what would
Speaker 3: be a fourth term for Labor. Now they're behind in
Speaker 3: the polls. He's staked his integrity and his political strategy
Speaker 3: on restoring integrity to Victoria. Obviously, the issues around corruption
Speaker 3: of the Big Build had significantly eroded support for Labor
Speaker 3: over the last few years. So he has staked a
Speaker 3: lot on restoring integrity. And now he's got this Iback report,
Speaker 3: he'll have to I think clear a few people out
Speaker 3: from taxpayer funded jobs who are adversely named. He has
Speaker 3: to be seen to be treating this seriously if he
Speaker 3: is going to have credibility as a labor leader who
Speaker 3: is willing to clean up the mess of his predecessors.
Speaker 2: I do not disclose cabinet discussions except to say I'm
Speaker 2: the Premier. Now I've called a Royal commission, he's the
Speaker 2: construction sector. I've made it the really clear. We will
Speaker 2: pass legislation to give Iback the powers that it has
Speaker 2: been asking for. And that is what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: We saw damon on Wednesday, a very fired up Peter
Speaker 1: Marshall in a press conference given just after the Operation
Speaker 1: Richmond report was tabled in Parliament. It was a bit
Speaker 1: of a strange scene. He made reporters and cameramen who
Speaker 1: were in attendance at that press conference watch a six
Speaker 1: or seven minute video before he would make any comments
Speaker 1: or take any questions. He then made a series of
Speaker 1: allegations that Iback had covertly monitored himself and other members
Speaker 1: of the United Firefighters Union.
Speaker 4: There aren't employers say that bully and rass. The High
Speaker 4: Court says they break the law. Who makes them accountable?
Speaker 4: There should be a review of iyback We're not saying
Speaker 4: there shouldn't be a corruption body, but what we are
Speaker 4: saying is that that corruption body should be made accountable somehow,
Speaker 4: and there is absolutely He.
Speaker 1: Also unsuccessfully applied to the Victorian Supreseport earlier this year
Speaker 1: to prevent the findings of Operation Richmond's report from being
Speaker 1: made public. He's denied any wrongdoing and again reiterated that
Speaker 1: no findings of corruption have been made against him or
Speaker 1: anybody else.
Speaker 4: Louis when looking for a finding that was simply not
Speaker 4: there eight years, around eight million dollars of public money.
Speaker 4: They're spent on a witch hunt. And why because when
Speaker 4: they find nothing, then they try to write up something
Speaker 4: that gives it substance. And that's what this report is.
Speaker 4: And that's why I'm calling a creative writing.
Speaker 1: Where does this leave Peter Marshall.
Speaker 3: After all this, Peter Marshall's defense I Suspect was aimed
Speaker 3: squarely at his rank and file members. Peter Marshall has
Speaker 3: to retain the support of the rank and file firefighters
Speaker 3: if he's going to keep his job. So that explains
Speaker 3: the video presentation I Suspect that'll be emailed out to
Speaker 3: thousands of firefighters Marshall's correct in that, like the others
Speaker 3: named in this report, there's no findings of corrupt conduct,
Speaker 3: but there's chapter and verse that reveals a really unsavory
Speaker 3: way that he would do business, some of the colorful
Speaker 3: text messages, some of the allegations about his language in
Speaker 3: phone calls. He's denied using some of that language. On
Speaker 3: the other hand, Marshall will argue he was there just
Speaker 3: to get the best possible deal for his members. But
Speaker 3: the real question here is did that leave Victorian taxpayers
Speaker 3: on the hook for tens, if not hundreds of millions
Speaker 3: of dollars in additional costs? And did that strip the
Speaker 3: volunteer country Fire Authority of operational autonomy from the unionized firefighters.
Speaker 3: And the report doesn't really go into the impacts of
Speaker 3: all this wheeling and dealing, but clearly Peter Marshall was
Speaker 3: a party to a secret process with the former premier
Speaker 3: Daniel Andrews to do a deal. And today we've seeing
Speaker 3: chapter in verse exactly the amount of secrecy and side
Speaker 3: dealings that went into that.
Speaker 1: Well, damon, it sounds like it's going to be an
Speaker 1: interesting four months in the run up to the state election.
Speaker 1: And no doubt this is not the last that we've
Speaker 1: heard of Operation Richmond in that context.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, thank you.
Speaker 1: Damon Johnston is The Australian's Victorian editor. You can read
Speaker 1: his analysis of Operation Richmond and what it means for
Speaker 1: the state's leadership right now at the Australian dot com
Speaker 1: dot au