Firefighters’ union boss Peter Marshall has failed in his bid to block the publication of a report by Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog into contentious dealings between the union and the Andrews government a decade ago.
Supreme Court Justice Claire Harris on Friday rejected the application by Marshall and his United Firefighters Union to stop the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) from releasing its report from its long-running Operation Richmond investigation.
IBAC was poised to publish its findings in May but was delayed by Marshall’s last-ditch Supreme Court action. His identity in that challenge was initially kept secret, and the union boss publicly denied he had sought to shut down the release of the report, only for the court to unmask him last month.
During a brief hearing on Friday morning, Harris found Marshall and the union had not “established any of the grounds of review” they had outlined to challenge the release of the long-awaited report.
The Operation Richmond investigation began in 2018 and centred on a controversial enterprise agreement struck between the United Firefighters Union and the Andrews government in 2016.
In the lead-up to the 2014 state election, which Labor won, the union instructed firefighters to campaign for Labor at marginal seat polling booths.
Then-emergency services minister Jane Garrett, who died in 2022, was responsible for negotiating the EBA with the UFU. But she quit her post after then-premier Daniel Andrews intervened in negotiations and struck a deal with Marshall that gave the union unprecedented influence over the operations of the Country Fire Authority and sparked an exodus of fire services chiefs.
Marshall’s legal challenge was heard in a closed court last month. Harris said on Friday the reasons for her judgment would similarly not be publicly released, given they referred extensively to the contents of IBAC’s Operation Richmond report.
Marshall and the UFU could still seek to appeal the judge’s decision.
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Patrick Hatch is transport reporter at The Age and a former business reporter.Connect via X or email.
