On 8 May 2025, Patrick Rundle, Deputy Official Secretary (Program) at the Office of the Governor of Victoria, wrote to me concerning my attempts to obtain information relating to Operation Dunham. The Governor’s Office explained that Freedom of Information requests in Victoria were dealt with by government departments and their relevant portfolio Ministers and specifically directed me to the Honorable Ben Carroll MP, Minister for Education. I was also told to continue raising concerns about the Freedom of Information process with the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC).
I followed those directions. I contacted the Honorable Ben Carroll MP in writing and by telephone concerning Operation Dunham. I also continued corresponding with OVIC and IBAC.
8 May 2025 — Governor’s Office directs you to Ben Carroll / Education and OVIC.
20 June 2025 — you write directly to Ben Carroll about Operation Dunham and the uncollected correspondence. LE832463616GB
23 June 2025 — you follow it up with Ben Carroll, OVIC and IBAC together. LE832463616GB
24 July 2025 — a Department of Education response says Minister Carroll asked them to respond on his behalf and identifies the issue as access to material associated with IBAC’s Operation Dunham.
I followed those directions.
- The Department of Education subsequently identified the material I was seeking as material associated with IBAC’s Operation Dunham, while OVIC itself acknowledged that I was seeking documents from IBAC.
- I then formally requested the Operation Dunham material from IBAC, including the audio recording and related material concerning Matthew Dunkley.
- That request has not simply disappeared because IBAC now wishes to characterise subsequent seventeen (17) correspondence as “excessive”.
- The correspondence continued because the underlying information request remained unanswered.
This is why IBAC’s latest position raises a serious public-interest question: how can a public anti-corruption body warn a person about the quantity of his correspondence while failing to provide a substantive answer to the information request that caused that correspondence to continue in the first place?
The documentary trail shows that I followed the routes Victoria’s own institutions directed me to follow. The question for IBAC remains the same:
Where is the requested Operation Dunham information, and if IBAC refuses to provide any part of it, what is the lawful and recorded basis for that refusal?
2025-05-8 letter from Patrick Rundle Deputy Official Secretary of State
IBAC – 2026-09-07
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