Firefighter union boss named as corruption secrecy bid fails

Firefighter union boss Peter Marshall has been unveiled as the person trying to block the publication of a corruption watchdog report.

Marshall and the United Firefighters Union were unmasked today as the applicants seeking to stop the release of the Operation Richmond report.

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The operation, launched by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission in 2019, investigated the Victorian government’s negotiations with the union.

IBAC indicated the final report would be released to the public by July 1 but that plan was sidetracked by Marshall and the union’s Supreme Court injunction application filed in May.

At the May 22 hearing, Justice Claire Harris rejected their bid to have their identities kept secret through a pseudonym order.

She found there was insufficient reasons to grant the order given the information already in the public domain.

The judge granted a temporary pseudonym order to allow the two applicants to appeal her decision to the Victorian Court of Appeal.

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But that appeal was rejected today, with the appeal court finding Justice Harris had not made an error.

The court ordered their names be publicised and the applicants’ barrister Paul Holdenson KC indicated he would not be appealing to the High Court.

The Supreme Court subsequently confirmed the applicants were the United Firefighters Union of Australia and the union’s national secretary Peter Marshall.

A hearing over the release of the Operation Richmond report is still listed to be heard in the Supreme Court on June 24.

Operation Richmond investigated the Victorian government’s negotiations withthe United Firefighters Union.

They centred around reforms to merge Metropolitan Fire Brigade members and career Country Fire Authority firefighters into the new Fire Rescue Victoria.

There were reports Daniel Andrews, who was Victorian premier at the time of the firefighter reform negotiations, was questioned over Operation Richmond but he refused to confirm or deny that was the case.

AAP