People around town were primed for a big day on Thursday, waiting for the Court of Appeal to allow the publication of the Victorian Human Rights Commission’s reporting into bullying and sexism at the state’s fire services.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Journos were pumped for a ripper yarn, Commissioner Kristen Hilton was organising interviews, the state government had its media strategy sorted, the opposition was ready to go in for the kill and firefighters’ union boss Peter Marshall had a pretty good distraction organised.
But the Supreme Court of Appeal hadn’t read the script and upheld Marshall’s appeal against an earlier court decision, keeping the report under lock and key.
That’s where it will stay, unless Hilton successfully appeals to the High Court.
So it was all a bit of a fizzer.
Things were different back in the heady days of 2015 when the fire services, Jane Garrett, Peter Marshall, the Country Fire Authority and the furore surrounding them was such white-hot news that it looked for while like it might leave Daniel Andrews’ premiership a smoking wreck.
Now, with Thursday’s decision, Andrews and Emergency Services Minister James Merlino might dare to dream it soon will all be over, especially after Marshall swore last month that he didn’t have a damaging secret tape of the Premier and there was no covert deal between them.
But the government’s controversial fire services reform package, which sparked the inferno in the first place, remains unfinished business, still languishing on the parliamentary notice paper with Labor lacking the numbers to pass it during the term of Parliament just ended.
It’s not the only spot fire still out there. Hilton’s challenge to the Melbourne Fire Brigade’s new enterprise bargaining agreement is yet to play out in the Fair Work Commission.
The new federal workplace relations minister, Melbourne’s own Kelly O’Dwyer, is yet to show the same appetite for this scrap as her predecessor, Craig Laundy, but the issue has been quiet for a while.
So Andrews and Merlino might hope the fire is under control, for now, but you can never tell when this blaze will again jump its political containment lines.
