A corruption watchdog investigation into one of Victorian politics’ longest-running industrial brawls has found that conduct fell short of the standard expected of a first-term government and the public service that served it. IBAC’s Operation Richmond examined how a routine wage negotiation with the state’s career firefighters curdled into a years-long dispute that reshaped the fire services and left scars still visible in Spring Street today.
What Operation Richmond actually examined #
IBAC’s investigation centred on the protracted 2016 enterprise bargaining negotiations between the former Country Fire Authority and the United Firefighters Union, and the extraordinary level of political involvement that accompanied them. According to IBAC’s findings, former premier Daniel Andrews, members of his senior ministry and senior public servants were involved in conduct that breached applicable codes of conduct during those negotiations.
IBAC’s role is not to prosecute criminal offences but to examine and report on corrupt conduct and serious breaches of public sector standards. The watchdog’s findings in this matter relate to conduct standards, not criminal charges, and no criminal charges have been laid as a result of Operation Richmond. That distinction matters for Victorian readers trying to understand what the finding does and does not mean.
How a pay claim became a governance crisis #
The 2016 pay dispute was never simply about wages. At its centre was a fight over operational control of Victoria’s volunteer and career firefighting arrangements, playing out against the backdrop of the Black Saturday royal commission’s recommendations still being implemented. What began as an industrial negotiation drew in the CFA board, the state’s volunteer base of more than 60,000 people, two government ministers who ultimately resigned, and eventually contributed to the government’s decision to split the CFA and create Fire Rescue Victoria.
IBAC’s findings, released this week, allege that during this period the level of direct political intervention in what should have been an arm’s-length industrial process was improper, and that public servants involved failed to maintain the independence and impartiality required of them. Victoria Police is not understood to be conducting a parallel criminal investigation into the matters canvassed by Operation Richmond.
What IBAC found — and what it didn’t #
According to IBAC, the breaches identified relate to code-of-conduct obligations around impartiality, proper use of public office, and transparency in dealings between ministerial offices and statutory authorities. IBAC’s report does not make findings of criminal conduct against any individual named in it, and it is important for readers to understand that a finding of a code-of-conduct breach is a different and lower threshold than a finding of criminal wrongdoing by a court.
Mr Andrews has not held the premiership since his resignation in 2023, and VCN has sought comment from his office regarding IBAC’s findings. Under the framework IBAC operates within, individuals named in reports are given an opportunity to respond before publication, and any formal responses provided are typically annexed to the final report.
Why this sits in Big Build Watch #
Readers may ask why an industrial dispute from 2016 belongs in our Big Build Watch coverage, which normally tracks governance and probity issues around Victoria’s major infrastructure projects. The answer is that Operation Richmond’s findings speak directly to a pattern this masthead has tracked across the Andrews and Allan governments: the blurring of lines between ministerial offices and the statutory bodies, boards and agencies meant to operate independently of day-to-day political direction.
The same tension — political offices exerting influence over bodies that are supposed to answer to a board or an independent regulator — has surfaced in IBAC’s prior findings on other major public projects and procurement decisions in this state. Operation Richmond is, in that sense, a case study in how governance failures identified in one portfolio can echo the concerns raised in infrastructure and project-delivery oversight more broadly.
The human cost inside the fire services #
Beyond the machinery of government, the dispute had a lasting effect on the people who volunteer and work within Victoria’s fire services. The stand-off between career firefighters represented by the United Firefighters Union and the CFA’s volunteer base became one of the most bitter internal conflicts in the organisation’s history, with volunteers publicly describing feeling sidelined from decisions about the future of brigades they had served in for decades.
It is understood that some of the animosity generated during the 2016 negotiations persists within parts of the volunteer community today, even after the creation of Fire Rescue Victoria in 2020 formally separated career firefighters into their own agency. Sources close to the fire services sector have told VCN that trust between volunteer leadership structures and government has been slow to rebuild.
What happens now #
IBAC’s reports to Parliament typically include recommendations rather than directions, and it will be a matter for the current government, led by Premier Jacinta Allan, to determine what action — if any — follows from Operation Richmond’s findings. Ms Allan’s office has been contacted for comment on whether the government intends to implement any recommendations arising from the report.
Because the findings relate to code-of-conduct breaches rather than criminal charges, there is no court process attached to this matter and no accused person facing prosecution. That means the ordinary sub judice cautions that apply to criminal proceedings do not arise here — but the same caution around fair reporting applies in a different form. IBAC’s findings are the product of an extensive statutory investigation, and this masthead is reporting what the watchdog has said in its published findings, attributed accordingly, rather than asserting any conclusion of our own about individual conduct.
The bigger picture for Victorian governance #
Operation Richmond arrives at a moment when public confidence in the machinery connecting ministerial offices to statutory agencies is already under strain, following IBAC’s earlier findings on planning and grants processes examined in Operations Sandon and Watts. Taken together, these investigations point to a recurring theme in Victorian public administration over the past decade: the difficulty of maintaining a genuine arm’s length between elected government and the independent bodies it appoints, funds and, at times, leans on.
For a firefighting service still rebuilding trust after Black Saturday, the royal commission that followed it, and now years of internal industrial conflict, the stakes in getting that balance right are not abstract. They go to whether the next generation of Victorian volunteers and career firefighters believe the system that oversees them is being run fairly, and in the public interest, rather than in the interests of whoever holds ministerial office at the time.
VCN will continue to report on IBAC’s findings as further material, including any government response, becomes public. Readers with information relevant to governance and probity matters affecting Victorian public agencies can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
