{"id":65227,"date":"2026-08-05T00:46:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T00:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/65227\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T00:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T00:46:17","slug":"ibac-report-stops-short-of-corruption-finding-after-years-long-victorian-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/65227\/","title":{"rendered":"IBAC report stops short of corruption finding after years-long Victorian investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog has found serious and concerning conduct by senior public officers, including ministers, MPs and public servants, during a bitter pay dispute with the state’s firefighters union.<\/p>\n

But the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) has stopped short of making any findings of corrupt conduct, instead warning such behaviour raised the risk of corruption.<\/p>\n

IBAC found that senior members of government acted contrary to established policies, procedures, codes of conduct and conventions in negotiating a deal with United Firefighters Union (UFU) secretary Peter Marshall without the knowledge and involvement of the responsible minister, agencies and departments.<\/p>\n

“By doing so, the government placed itself in a position where Mr Marshall was able to exert extraordinary influence over the negotiations,” the report read.<\/p>\n

Mr Marshall was also given privileged access to senior government figures.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/p>\n

Peter Marshall is the secretary of the United Firefighters Union in Victoria. (ABC News: Leanne Wong)<\/p>\n

The UFU secretary responded to the IBAC findings by calling for an investigation into the anti-corruption body itself.<\/p>\n

“Eight years and what we understand to be an estimated $8 million dollars of public money, and not one finding of corrupt conduct,” Mr Marshall said.<\/p>\n

“This was a pursuit in search of a case that never existed to begin with.”<\/p>\n

Mr Marshall said the investigation employed “intrusive surveillance methods” which he described as “extreme”.<\/p>\n

“IBAC’s record needs to be reviewed as to its own conduct into its treatment of its own employees, its defence of its own legislation when persistent leaks occur, and its publication of confidential phone intercepts despite there being no corrupt conduct,” he said.<\/p>\n

Premier Ben Carroll says he will accept report recommendations<\/p>\n

Victorian premier Ben Carroll said the report highlighted “poor behaviour” that was “intolerable”, but distanced himself from the investigation.<\/p>\n

“This was a report that was 10 years in the making, I was not in the cabinet when all of these matters began,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I will take action, I will accept the recommendations and get on with implementing them.”<\/p>\n

The IBAC investigation examined allegations of corruption during the bitter industrial dispute between firefighters union<\/a>, the Country Fire Authority, and the government of former premier Daniel Andrews.<\/p>\n

The investigation began in 2018 and looked into the matter as far back as Mr Andrews’s first term in office.<\/p>\n

In 2014, the militant United Firefighters Union ran a concerted campaign against the then-Coalition government over pay and conditions.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Daniel Andrews was Victorian premier at the time of the enterprise bargaining negotiations. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)<\/p>\n

Mr Andrews promised to respect firefighters, increase their numbers and overhaul the way firefighting operated in Victoria.<\/p>\n

But upon coming to office after the 2014 election, Mr Andrews gave the job of emergency services minister to Jane Garrett, who resisted the union’s demands.<\/p>\n

The issue came to a head in 2016, with Mr Andrews intervening to end the impasse.<\/p>\n

The move forced Ms Garrett, who died from cancer in 2022, to resign, and fuelled allegations the union had been given a sweetheart deal.<\/p>\n

IBAC’s probe is understood to have included interviews with Mr Andrews and senior ministers, however witnesses are unable to confirm or deny if they have been spoken to under IBAC’s laws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog has found serious and concerning conduct by senior public officers, including ministers, MPs and public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,27367,3862,5091,21208,63221,63267,1334],"class_list":["post-65227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-cfa","tag-daniel-andrews","tag-firefighters","tag-ibac","tag-operation-richmond","tag-peter-marshall","tag-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}