Daniel Andrews apologises for ‘disgraceful behaviour’ of Labor MPs after scathing Ibac findings

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, says he takes full responsibility for the “disgraceful” conduct uncovered in a damning report into Labor branch stacking, as he apologised to the public and vowed to implement sweeping reform.

The report of Operation Watts – a joint investigation between the state’s ombudsman and the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac) uncovered widespread misuse of taxpayer resources for political purposes and a “catalogue” of unethical behaviour in the Victorian branch of the Labor party including nepotism, the hiring of unqualified people for public roles and using those roles for political party work.

Responding to the report, Andrews said the behaviour uncovered did not meet his expectations or those held by Victorians.

“As leader of the parliamentary Labor party and the premier of our state, I take full responsibility for all of that conduct. That’s what the top job is all about and I apologise for it,” he said.

Andrews said the government had accepted all 21 recommendations in the report and would “go further” by introducing legislation to restrict political parties in the state from receiving public funding unless they meet a set of criteria designed to stamp out corrupt behaviour. Criteria would include requiring party memberships to be paid by traceable means, implementing mandatory identification checks for new members joining a political party and measures to ensure compliance in the use of the electoral roll.

The state’s attorney general, Jaclyn Symes, claimed the proposed reform agenda would be the largest overhaul of a parliament’s integrity structures in the nation, after the report concluded Victoria had become a “laggard rather than a leader in parliamentary integrity”.

Andrews said he had personally contacted the Victorian ombudsman, Deborah Glass, and Ibac commissioner, Robert Redlich, to inform them that cabinet had accepted all of their recommendations, including that the government establish an independent parliamentary integrity commissioner, ban MPs from being able to employ family members in their electorate office, and create an offence that would make it unlawful for ministers to allow a person to perform party political work while employed in a publicly funded role.

Victoria’s opposition seized on the findings of the report, with the opposition leader, Matthew Guy, claiming the Andrews government was “mired in corruption, cover-ups, and political games at the expense of Victorians” and hence unfit to govern the state.

The Operation Watts report revealed two former Andrews government ministers – the moderate faction leader Adem Somyurek and Marlene Kairouz – breached parliamentary codes of conduct when they misused public funds to fuel a vast branch-stacking operation. Despite describing their conduct as egregious, it concluded there was not enough proof they had committed criminal offences to recommend prosecution. The report found while branch stacking – the practice of large-scale recruitment of non-genuine members to influence the outcome of votes within Labor branches – was a common and longstanding practice it found no evidence of potential misuse of public funds within other factions.

Kairouz stood down as a minister after an investigation by the Age and 60 Minutes into branch stacking was published in June 2020, while Somyurek was dumped from the ministry.

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Somyurek said on Wednesday he was “liberated” after the investigation stopped short of concluding he had committed criminal offences.

“On the one level, I’m happy. I’m relieved. I feel exonerated. I feel some good emotions on the one side because I’m finally getting my life back. But on the other side, I’m very angry,” he said.

Speaking to reporters, Somyurek said he had “done absolutely nothing wrong” and claimed while branch stacking was common place in the Labor party he had only engaged in it for one-and-a-half months.

But Glass rejected Somyurek’s assertion that the former minister had been “exonerated” and said there was “no shadow of doubt” the conduct of the two former ministers was “egregious”.

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The Labor prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the adverse conduct uncovered within the Victorian Labor party had been stamped out and pointed to the extraordinary federal intervention in 2020 which suspended the voting rights in the state’s branch.

“What we have is a different set of rules and structures, different personnel in place, as a result of the need to ensure that people could have confidence in the Victorian Labor party going forward,” he said.

“I have that confidence and I note that the Australian people, in particular people in Victoria, expressed that confidence by electing additional Labor members to the federal parliament.”