Breaking: The Andrews government improperly awarded a union a $1.2 million contract after ministerial staff inappropriately pressured bureaucrats, IBAC finds. springst
Operation Daintree investigated how the DHHS awarded the HWU a $1.2 million contract on the eve of the 2018 election without a competitive tender process because of significant pressure from ministerial staff, the premier’s office and union boss Diana Asmar.IBAC found staff in the health ministers’ and premier’s office breached ethical obligations by pressuring health department officials to award a contract to the union to train hospital staff to deal with violence against health workers.
IBAC cleared Andrews, former health ministers Jill Hennessy and Jenny Mikakos, and ministerial and department staff of corrupt conduct, but provided a damning assessment of the centralisation of power under the premier’s watch and the “significant erosion” of ministerial accountability. Throughout that year, political staff pressured the department to award the contract to the union, according to IBAC’s report, despite the union’s newly formed training entity not being a registered training organisation or having relevant experience in providing training to healthcare workers.
“The premier had no recollection of what he discussed with Ms Asmar, no recollection of any discussion with his advisers that led to this announcement and no awareness that they and the minister for health’s adviser had discussed a detailed proposal,” the report said. However, the agency said it could not prove that the premier was aware of the serious probity concerns that had been raised about the training program contract.
IBAC found the quality of the training was poor: 60 per cent of hospital staff who attended the training believed the trainers were not organised or prepared, while nearly 80 per cent believed the trainers did not have in-depth knowledge of occupational violence and aggression, nor were they providing a program that was relevant to the health sector.
It also described the scheme as another example of the “phenomenon of grey corruption that is of increasing concerns to integrity bodies”.
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