Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s (IBAC) report into the Operation Richmond investigation was handed down on Wednesday. The investigation, which commenced in 2018, followed complaints alleging corrupt conduct in the negotiations for the Country Fire Authority (CFA) EBA — including allegations that union secretary Peter Marshall blackmailed then-premier Daniel Andrews. In its review of the state government’s EBA negotiations with the union between 2016 and 2019 and during the establishment of Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) in 2019, IBAC found that “significant risk” of corrupt conduct was created by a combination of privileged access given to the United Firefighters Union (UFU) boss and lack of transparency about processes for stakeholder management.