‘Dictator Dan’ may be gone, but the stench of corruption lingers on in Victoria. Like corpses being disinterred from shallow graves, the skeletons of Dan’s corrupt era are slowly, inexorably, getting dragged into the light.
Last week, as I reported for The Good Oil, an independent inquiry found that police conspired to cover up the facts around a 2013 car crash, in which the Andrews family tank nearly killed a teenaged cyclist. There’s still plenty more questions hanging over that one, as the cyclist sues the Labor-aligned law firm, which, he says, pressured him into accepting a token payout in return for silence.
But that was only the tip of the pyramid of poo piled up by Dan Andrews. Another was the scandal around a sweetheart deal between the powerful United Firefighters Union and the incoming Andrews Labor government. In return for vigorous campaigning by union members, the Andrews government in power set about trashing the venerable and proud volunteer firefighting service, the Country Fire Association, and handing it over to the city-based union.
The [Metropolitan Fire Brigade] was merged with the paid section of the Country Fire Authority in 2020, forming a new entity called Fire Rescue Victoria.
That three-year process was a bitter political battle, with some volunteers warning they would quit if they were no longer able to attend incidents alongside paid firefighters.
But it was also part of a long-running saga over firefighting in Victoria that plagued the Andrews government since 2016. Volunteer anger over a new workplace agreement for the CFA’s professional firefighters became an issue in the 2016 federal election.
That same year, the late Jane Garrett sensationally resigned as Victoria’s emergency services minister after then-premier Daniel Andrews sided with the United Firefighters Union in the industrial dispute.
The UFU, it emerges, had ‘unprecedented control’ over the MFB – and union bosses weren’t afraid to use it. Union boss Peter Marshall ordered his staff to gather and leak sensitive information about both the organisation and a bullying probe against him, according to a new anti-corruption report.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission on Wednesday […] identified in its findings five separate incidents where MFB information was accessed or disclosed without approval and that the staff involved were “motivated to misuse MFB information to further the interests of the Victorian branch of the UFU or its secretary, Peter Marshall”.
Investigators also found that Marshall had “inappropriately” sought assistance from employees to gather information about a potential WorkSafe probe into his own behaviour and the contracts of senior MFB executives - some of which he passed on to then-emergency services minister Lisa Neville.
The UFU and the Andrews government being best mates, Dan’s public service lickspittles were only too obliging to help out.
Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog has found emails of Victoria’s fire chiefs were hacked five times and the hackers were public servants “motivated to misuse” the information “to further the interests” of the firefighters union and its state secretary Peter Marshall.
A bombshell report tabled in parliament on Wednesday has finally lift the lid on a marathon top secret inquiry by IBAC – codenamed Operation Turton – into the hacking of internal communications at the then Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
The wheels of anti-corruption investigation grind tortuously slow, in Dandrewstan.
A second IBAC probe relating to the fire services – codenamed Operation Richmond – is also continuing under tight secrecy. The inquiry is focused on the 2016 EBA negotiations between the Andrews government and the United Firefighters Union.
The EBA negotiations erupted into a full-blown political scandal after it emerged then premier Daniel Andrews sidelined his emergency services minister, Jane Garrett, to lead the talks including personally meeting with UFU state secretary Peter Marshall.
Despite opposition within his own government to the generous workplace deal, Mr Andrews pushed it through, prompting the resignation of Ms Garrett amid speculation it was payback for union support during the 2014 state election, when Labor regained power.
And didn’t Dictator Dan’s best little mate do well out of it all?
Australia’s highest-paid union leader, United Firefighters Union secretary Peter Marshall, received $547,398 last financial year, almost as much as the Prime Minister’s salary and more than double the amount paid to most national union leaders.
They say crime doesn’t pay, but corruption clearly does in Labor’s Victoria.
