Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews investigated by anti-corruption watchdog

This article has been written on the basis of information discovered outside the draft IBAC report.

The premier’s office did not answer The Age’s queries. Instead, Andrews’ media manager responded with a series of questions seeking further details of the allegations and questioning whether The Age trusted its sources.

Daniel Andrews, then health minister Jill Hennessy (third from right) and union leader Diana Asmar (right) announcing the $2.2 million election commitment a week before the 2018 election campaign began.Credit:Paul Sakkal

IBAC interviewed several others involved in the contract negotiations as part of its investigation, The Age was told, including former health minister Jill Hennessy.

A crucial meeting

The government awarded a $1.2 million contract, which is outlined in public documents, to the HWU on the eve of the 2018 election. Seven days earlier, and before the tender had been finalised, Andrews publicly announced an additional $2.2 million election promise for the same training program alongside Asmar.

Publicly available footage shows the premier announcing the funding as a “partnership” with the union during a press conference with Asmar and Jill Hennessy, who was health minister at the time, a week before the caretaker period.

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Andrews said at the time: “We’re announcing today $2.2 million in additional investment, in partnership with the HWU, to make sure every member of staff is trained and has the knowledge and the skills to keep themselves safe. We know that health environments can be very challenging.”

Two sources with knowledge of the investigation told The Age that a critical meeting between the premier, Asmar and others in early October, weeks before the $2.2 million announcement, had been a particular focus of IBAC investigators. Sources alleged Andrews promised the money.

The Age has confirmed that IBAC investigators questioned witnesses about whether political advisers in the offices of both Andrews and Hennessy had applied pressure on public servants to approve the $1.2 million payment to the union.

On the election campaign trail on Friday, Andrews was asked if IBAC investigators had interviewed him or his staff.

“What IBAC is or isn’t doing, who they have or haven’t spoken to, is a matter for them,” he said.

Asmar said in a statement to The Age she could not comment on “any inquiry” resulting from the awarding of the contract, but said the union had acted appropriately during the contract negotiations.

“The Health Workers Union acted solely in the interests of our members and health workers,” she said. “Any union secretary would have lobbied government to protect their members’ workplace safety.

“Violence against health workers is real, and it was entirely appropriate for the premier to support this much-needed initiative.”

Revelations of the anti-corruption investigation will prompt fresh questions about the government’s integrity record, particularly because Operation Daintree is probing Andrews’ personal actions, unlike other corruption inquiries for which he was questioned but was not central.

It is the fourth known anti-corruption inquiry that has privately interviewed the Labor leader, who is seeking his third term as premier. He was also questioned in IBAC’s operations Richmond, into Labor’s dealings with the firefighters’ union, Sandon, into allegedly corrupt developers, and Watts, which criticised Labor’s internal culture.

Caretaker conventions

The Age has confirmed that the union first approached the government with a proposal for the training program in early 2018. Other suppliers were not considered, which is unusual for a contract of that size.

Before the Health Department’s due diligence process for the training course was completed, the government – which was about to go into caretaker mode – made a fresh $2.2 million pledge for an expanded training course for 1000 workers, which is referenced on the union’s Facebook page and a government press release.

Tender documents show the first promised contract, of $1.2 million, was eventually signed off on October 30, the day before the caretaker period before the 2018 election. Once this phase begins a month before election day, the government cannot enact government policy. In the days before it, convention dictates the government should not bind a future government to controversial decisions.

The union’s training entity, the Health Education Federation, received only a fraction of the promised funding because COVID-19 lockdowns brought the training program to a halt in 2020.

Sources familiar with the negotiations said department officials later attempted to cancel the union’s contract because they determined the program was of poor quality. Asmar rejected that criticism, telling The Age the training module was refined over time and run by “highly credible” instructors.

“It was necessary for a training program for frontline health workers to be developed by the people that represent frontline health workers,” Asmar said. “From day one, however, the Health Department had to be dragged kicking and screaming from their sloth-like state by their political masters to action this important issue.”

The premier’s office and the Health Department did not respond to detailed questions from The Age.

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Integrity in government has been a key issue in the early stages of the 2022 election campaign. Voters across the state, consulted as part of The Age’s Victoria’s Agenda project, said they wanted to know how the parties would protect Victoria’s political system from corruption and misuse of public funds.

The Coalition initially targeted the government on integrity issues in the lead-up to the election campaign, before that line of argument was derailed by revelations that Opposition Leader Matthew Guy’s then chief of staff Mitch Catlin sought $100,000 in payments to his private marketing company in a contract that, if signed, could have breached the state’s rules on political donations. Guy was copied on the email that contained the proposed contract.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy described the number of anti-corruption investigations to examine the government as “unprecedented” during a press conference on Friday.

“It’s one of the reasons I have said that I believe the corruption commission needs its powers to be expanded, and its powers to be more secure and expanded.”

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