Ombudsman laments investigating the same issues ‘time and time again’

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Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass said it was depressing that her agency had been investigating the same integrity complaints for more than a decade as Premier Jacinta Allan rejected her latest findings that senior bureaucrats were cut out of secretive planning for the Suburban Rail Loop.

Glass appeared in a webinar on Thursday with the Victorian and federal anti-corruption watchdogs, a day after handing down her two-year investigation into alleged politicisation of the public sector.

Premier Jacinta Allan on Thursday.Credit: Joe Armao

“One of the things that was so difficult to deal with in that investigation were people who were afraid to speak to us. These are potential whistleblowers,” Glass said.

“I do think that there are some really significant lessons that need to be learned here. That starts with shoring up the independence of the key appointments right across the public service.”

Asked to reflect on her 10-year appointment, which ends in March, Glass said: “There probably is a moment of ‘deep sigh’ there because, if I look at the reports of my predecessor from 10 and more years ago, I’m still reporting on the same things, and I suspect the next ombudsman will be reporting on the same things.”

Glass recognised some areas of improvement, but said it was “frustrating and occasionally a bit depressing that things come through time and time again”.

Her report found Victoria’s top transport bureaucrat Richard Bolt was left out of the planning of the Suburban Rail Loop and work was instead outsourced to consultants at PwC to “prove up” the project. She warned that taxpayer money could go to waste as a result.

Allan on Thursday rejected that. She said the orbital rail link was designed to address the objectives of Plan Melbourne by offering public transport options in a growing city and boosting productivity.

“So, firstly, the public service did do this work, the public service, absolutely,” Allan said. “And yes, as you need to from time to time, external advice was sought.”

Investigators found that the handful of public servants working on the project were required to sign confidentiality deeds, meaning some senior bureaucrats were forced to conceal their work from their boss – the secretary of the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources.

While the ombudsman’s investigation didn’t substantiate allegations that the early development of the project “resulted from compromised objectivity driven by the appointment of a former ministerial staffer”, Glass concluded that excluding public servants could make bureaucrats fearful of properly scrutinising the elected government’s policy agenda to avoid further marginalisation.

Allan said the government would consider the report’s recommendations.

“As a consequence of that intensive and exhaustive investigation, not one finding, there was no evidence of any partisan appointment being made in the public service,” Allan said.

She said she had not witnessed the culture of fear that the ombudsman said risked diminishing the public sector’s ability to give frank and fearless advice.

“My expectation of the public servants that I’ve worked with is that they give me strong, professional, intelligent, thoughtful advice … and from time to time, you might have a point of disagreement with your public servants. But that’s a good and healthy thing to have in a functioning democratic system.”

The ombudsman recommended a new independent public service chief should appoint senior bureaucrats. Allan said it was standard practice under the Westminster system that politicians were elected to make such decisions and the system worked as is.

Grattan Institute transport and cities program director Marion Terrill said Victoria was facing a mountain of debt.

“What the ombudsman’s report has shown us is the development of the Suburban Rail Loop was done without proper regard to the contribution of the project to the productivity and economic growth,” Terrill said.

“The bigger the investment, the more disturbing that becomes. The normal budget process is for different claims on the public coffers to be tested against each other and debated and thrashed out.”

Opposition Leader John Pesutto said it was nonsense for the premier to claim public servants were not excluded.

“A small group of people – and not often the most senior people in the room – were brought in under the veil of secrecy to develop the Suburban Rail Loop,” he said.

“So the whole point was to make this project go forward irrespective of all of the arguments to and fro. And that’s not the way you should govern Victoria.”

Pesutto accused Allan of dismissing Wednesday’s report and said taxpayers would pay the price unless something was done to address the ombudsman’s concerns.

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