The Victorian government has lost its legal battle to keep secret the coronavirus briefings that it claims justified the state’s extended lockdowns, with the Court of Appeal rejecting its latest attempt to block their release.

The court on Thursday refused the Department of Health’s application for leave to appeal a ruling by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) in June last year, which ordered the release of the documents to Liberal MP David Davis.

🚨 Victorian Government CRUSHED in Court

Lockdown secrets they desperately tried to bury are about to EXPLODE! The Court of Appeal just said NO to hiding the brutal COVID files!

Full episode: https://t.co/tf5uctXz5p pic.twitter.com/sQvaMN4lrK

— Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) March 21, 2025

Davis has been pushing for the release of emails and internal communications behind the lockdown decisions, including exchanges between then-Public Health Commander Finn Romanes and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton, since lodging a Freedom of Information (FOI) request in September 2020.

Following the decision, Davis said the judgment by appeal court judges Richard Niall, Karin Emerton, and Stephen Kaye would bring long-awaited transparency to Labor’s contentious handling of the pandemic.

“This has exposed Labor’s shameful cover-up of critical information, using every trick in the book to block and frustrate FOI requests,” he said.

“Labor is far from a model litigant.

“In fact, this is the most secretive government in Victorian history.

“The release of these documents has been blocked for five years by the Andrews and Allan Labor governments.

“What have they got to hide?”

The very fact they tried to keep this secret should ring alarm bells.

Let the truth come out, then let the prosecutions begin.

What these documents will show, at a minimum, is gross negligence and failures of duty of care. pic.twitter.com/WvpL2bAk4x

— Topher Field (@TopherField) March 20, 2025

Davis’ initial FOI request was rejected on the grounds that processing it would “substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the agency from its other operations.”

After he pressed on, the government took the matter to VCAT, arguing the documents were not of public interest and their release would discourage frank discussions among senior officials.

However, VCAT member Caitlin English found no evidence that assembling the estimated 7,000 pages of documents would disrupt government services and ruled the information should be made public due to its “high public interest.”

The state appealed on seven grounds, including claims of procedural unfairness and errors in determining which documents were exempt from release.

Justices Niall, Emerton, and Kaye rejected the appeal, ruling that English had not made any legal errors and her reasoning “did not involve or contain any demarcation.”

“We have concluded that each of the seven proposed grounds of appeal do not succeed,” their judgment read. “Accordingly, the application for leave to appeal is refused.”

It remains unclear whether the government will escalate the case to a higher court or how long it will take to release the documents.

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