In August 2016, a couple of months after she had resigned as Victoria’s Emergency Services Minister, Labor MP Jane Garrett gave me a long off-the-record interview in which she accused the secretary of the Victorian United Firefighters Union, Peter Marshall, of threatening her.

Ms Garrett had unsuccessfully sided with Country Fire Authority volunteers against plans to expand union firefighters into their areas of responsibility. The dispute was credited with contributing to the Labor Party’s narrow loss at the 2016 federal election.