Victoria's anti-corruption watchdog has released a report saying senior members of the former Daniel Andrews government acted in "serious and concerning" ways in their dealings with firefighters union leader Peter Marshall. But the watchdog stopped short of saying anyone actually committed corruption.

The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, known as IBAC, tabled its report on 5 August 2026 in Victoria's parliament. The investigation, called Operation Richmond, started in 2018. That means it took about eight years to finish. The report looked at what happened during negotiations over pay and working conditions for firefighters. These negotiations involved the United Firefighters Union (UFU), the Country Fire Authority (CFA), the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB), and the Victorian government. The pay deals eventually led to the CFA and MFB being merged into a single body called Fire Services Victoria (FSV) The Guardian.

IBAC's main finding was that the Victorian government made an "undisclosed deal" with Peter Marshall, the secretary of the UFU. This deal gave Marshall "privileged access" to the ministers in charge of the negotiations. Because of this, Marshall was able to wield "extraordinary influence" over the pay negotiations for the CFA and MFB, while other people who should have had a say were left out The Guardian. The report listed conduct that included breaking policies and codes of conduct, deliberately hiding things and misleading people, and misusing information.

The whole investigation began with a tip-off in 2018. Someone alleged that Marshall had "blackmailed or otherwise compromised" Daniel Andrews to change his position on the CFA pay deal. IBAC found no evidence of blackmail and did not back up that claim. Both Andrews and Marshall denied it The Guardian.

Getting the report out took a long time because of legal fights. IBAC first said in May 2026 that the report was delayed because of court proceedings IBAC. Then in June 2026, IBAC said the people who had taken legal action against the commission had taken another legal step IBAC. In June 2026, it came out that the United Firefighters Union and Peter Marshall were the ones trying to stop the report from being released. They took their fight all the way to the High Court ABC News. By early August 2026, the report was finally ready to go The Australian.

IBAC had described Operation Richmond in April 2026 as an investigation into possible corrupt conduct during the pay negotiations IBAC. Before that, IBAC had released a separate but related report called Operation Turton in September 2024. That report looked at whether MFB employees had accessed and shared information they were not supposed to, and it found a problematic workplace culture within the brigade IBAC.

You might wonder why IBAC found "serious and concerning" conduct but did not say anyone committed corrupt conduct. The reason is that IBAC's legal bar for a formal corruption finding is very high. Conduct that does not meet that bar can still be reported publicly if it reveals problems like systematic failures in how government works, breaches of codes of conduct, or deliberate efforts to mislead. The report's list of hidden dealings, special union access, and misuse of information fits squarely into that category.

The broader context here is about how much power a single union leader should have over government decisions, and whether government staff are held accountable. The Andrews government's handling of the CFA dispute was politically explosive at the time. It pitted volunteer firefighters' interests against union negotiations and ultimately led to the government passing laws to restructure the state's fire services. IBAC's finding that a secret side deal with one union secretary shaped the direction of those reforms will likely lead to harder questions about how pay negotiations are run and recorded when politics and industrial relations collide.

The legal fight to suppress the report also deserves attention. The UFU's use of the High Court and multiple lower-court proceedings stretched the investigation to nearly a decade. That raises questions about whether anti-corruption bodies can publish their findings in a reasonable timeframe when the people being investigated use lawsuits to slow things down. IBAC's own public statements, released bit by bit across May and June 2026, tracked each legal move, showing how limited the commission was.

IBAC did not find evidence for the blackmail claim that started the whole investigation. What it did find was a pattern of hidden influence, ministers granting access to only one person, and deliberate concealment, carried out by senior figures in a government that was in power the entire time. Whether the findings lead to real changes in how Victoria conducts pay negotiations, or simply become a matter of public record, will depend on what the government and institutions do next.