‘Dig up dirt’ on Ibac: Victorian government under pressure over leaked letter

The Andrews government has come under renewed pressure to reform the state’s integrity and oversight committee after the leaking of a letter claiming government MPs instructed consultants to “dig up dirt” on the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac).

The Herald Sun on Thursday published a letter from former anti-corruption watchdog head Robert Redlich accusing government MPs of seeking to undermine Ibac.

The letter was sent to parliament’s presiding officers in December and included a claim that government MPs involved in the integrity and oversight committee – which oversees Ibac – had sought to discredit the agency.

“IBAC’s experience with the IOC, particularly in the last twelve months, evidences a lack of fairness, partisanship, and leaking of information to the media,” Redlich wrote.

Opposition attorney general spokesperson, Michael O’Brien, said the allegations contained in the letter needed to be probed in parliament or through a judicial inquiry.

“We need to get answers from the former commissioner, we need to get answers from the independent auditor,” he said.

“We need to get answers. Victorians deserve answers.”

The Victorian Greens are yet to decide if they will support the push for the inquiry. The opposition and Greens could combine in the upper house to force an inquiry with the support of three upper house crossbench MPs.

The opposition leader, John Pesutto, used a heated question time in the lower house to urge the speaker, Maree Edwards, to make Redlich’s letter available to parliament.

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William Partlett, an associate professor at the University of Melbourne law school, said the presiding officers – who received the letter – had a duty to circulate the letter to all of parliament.

“It seems quite clear that Redlich was intending for this letter to be given to parliament and not just to the presiding officers,” he said.

“There’s nothing in law that requires them to pass it on, but there is a strong argument to be made that parliamentary convention suggests that they should have.”

The premier, Daniel Andrews, refuted the claims that his government MPs – who sit on the committee that has oversight of integrity agencies – acted inappropriately.

“I absolutely reject any suggestion by him or anybody else that the government does not behave appropriately. The government does behave appropriately – there are no findings to the contrary,” he told reporters.

“I’m not having a debate with a bloke who used to run an agency and he’s apparently written a letter that I haven’t seen.”

Redlich used the letter – in the final weeks of his position in December – to call for an overhaul of the state’s integrity and oversight committee to ensure it could not be dominated or chaired by government MPs.

The research director at the Centre for Public Integrity, Dr Catherine Williams, said that reforming the government’s dominance on the committee should be a priority for reform.

“What we see in Victoria is the oversight committees are not effectively performing their scrutiny functions and when we look at the reason for that it appears that executive domination is what’s driving that,” she said.