We’ve suspected for a long time that Peter Marshall always thought he didn’t just run the firefighters’ union but was in charge of the entire firefighting show in Victoria.
And now we have proof this is indeed the case.
IBAC’s Operation Turton report calls out Marshall and his cronies in the fire service for thinking they were entitled to essentially run a shadow management of the organisation, that saw the hacking of emails and accessing and leaking confidential information.
The public servants, IBAC found, were motivated by a “desire” to benefit the union and Marshall.
In the most damning evidence uncovered in this marathon anti-corruption inquiry, IBAC found that in 2019, union-friendly staff at the fire service, then known as the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, hacked a confidential report prepared by the management, then run by Dan Stephens, who had been brought in from the UK to whip the troubled service into shape.
The report was a proposal to implement a new software that could lead to better response times by closing little used stations and expanding others.
The union hated the idea, and once it had the power point presentation gave it directly to then emergency services minister Lisa Neville.
This blindsided Dan Stephens, who was yet to brief the minister on the plans.
Not surprisingly for a Labor minister, Ms Neville threw Stephens’ plan in the bin.
The report stops short of recommending criminal charges or making referrals to the Office of Public Prosecutions. But it represents a damning indictment of the way Marshall and his fellow travellers conducted themselves.
Given the fact that union leaders have crashed to earth regularly of late, there is enough adverse commentary for the question to be asked of Marshall: will you resign?
This is also about Labor, of course. Most of this happened on the watch of the leadership of Daniel Andrews. He allowed Marshall to run riot, and essentially have direct access to him as premier when the government was locked in an internal debate about handing control of the CFA to the Marshall-controlled UFU.
These broader issues will be covered in Operation Richmond, which has been running for longer than World War II. This will hopefully be released in 2024.
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