A mystery party has launched Supreme Court action to stop IBAC from publishing a report into corruption allegations centred on dealings between former premier Daniel Andrews and union boss Peter Marshall.
The action is the latest legal manoeuvre in a protracted saga which has spanned 10 years, two state elections and three IBAC commissioners.
An urgent Supreme Court hearing on Friday morning was told the legal action was prompted by IBAC’s decision on Thursday to provide a copy of its unpublished, final report from Operation Richmond – a corruption probe into the 2016 dealings between the Victorian government and the United Firefighters Union – to a party involved in the matter.
That party, who was not identified in Friday’s hearing, is now seeking to prevent IBAC from reporting its findings to parliament and publishing the report.
IBAC previously flagged its intention to publish the report on Monday.
Counsel for IBAC, Frances Gordon, KC, on Friday gave an undertaking to Justice Claire Harris that the anti-corruption agency would not publish the report, or provide any further advance copies of it to other parties, before the court dealt with the legal challenge.
A trial has been scheduled for late June. “I think there is a real public interest in this moving very quickly,” Justice Harris said.
The court on Friday took a series of extraordinary steps to preserve the anonymity of the mystery litigant seeking to block publication of the Operation Richmond report.
The case was filed as “Restricted v Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission”, the court file concealed from public view and part of Friday’s hearing held behind closed doors to assign pseudonyms to the plaintiff and other relevant parties.
A lawyer representing The Age and other media groups, Justin Quill, was refused permission to remain in court while the identity of the plaintiff was discussed.
“It is hard to imagine a matter in this court that has a greater public interest,” he told Justice Harris. “This court is being asked to restrict the flow of information to our parliament. That is an extraordinary thing that your honour is being asked to do.
“The public has an enormous interest in understanding the reasons why … and what is going on.”
The tortured history of Operation Richmond, which has been delayed by previous legal challenges by Marshall and the UFU and changing IBAC commissioners, will revive debate about IBAC’s limited jurisdiction to hold public hearings, even in matters of clear public interest.
Under the IBAC Act, the agency must demonstrate “exceptional circumstances” to examine witnesses in public. The opposition has promised to strengthen IBAC’s powers and remove the exceptional circumstances requirement if it forms the next government.
This masthead has previously reported that in December 2021, Andrews was privately examined by IBAC in relation to Operation Richmond and three other IBAC investigations.
Four-and-a-half years later, Victorians have been provided no details of what their state’s most senior politician told IBAC in relation to his dealings with a powerful union leader.
Final reports into the other matters – operations Daintree, Sandon and Watts – have all been published. None contained findings of corrupt conduct against Andrews.
Andrews in 2022 refused to confirmed whether he had been examined by IBAC. “If you want to know what IBAC has done or hasn’t done, who they’ve done it with, then you should go and talk to them,” he told reporters.
The opposition has promised to strengthen IBAC’s powers and remove the exceptional circumstances requirement if it forms the next government.
Richmond centred on a contentious enterprise agreement struck between the UFU and the Andrews government in 2016.
In the lead up to 2014 state election, which returned Labor to power, firefighters acting on the instructions of the union campaigned for Labor at marginal seat polling booths.
Then emergency services minister Jane Garrett, who died in 2022, was responsible for negotiating the EBA with Marshall, the long-serving UFU national secretary. She quit her post in protest after Andrews intervened in negotiations and struck with Marshall a deal which gave the UFU unprecedented influence over the operations of the Country Fire Authority.
Operation Richmond began in 2019 under former IBAC commissioner Robert Redlich and was largely complete when he left office in 2022. The investigation continued to run under acting commissioner Stephen Farrow and is now being overseen by Commissioner Victoria Elliott, who took over the agency in 2023.
The hearing was adjourned until 3.30pm on Friday.
Chip Le Grand leads our state politics reporting team. He previously served as the paper’s chief reporter and is a journalist of 30 years’ experience.Connect via email.From our partners
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