West Tamar Mayoral Hopeful Rick Shegog Abruptly Abandons Unfair Dismissal Fight Against Ambulance Tasmania After Bid to Keep His Name Secret Is Opposed
- Outgoing West Tamar deputy mayor Rick Shegog walked away from his unfair dismissal case on the very day the hearing began.
- The health department had lined up Tasmania’s Police Commissioner Donna Adams to give evidence before the case collapsed.
- His lawyer’s request to suppress his name was opposed by the department in the interests of open justice, and the case was dropped soon after a short adjournment.
- The candidate, who describes himself as a former police sergeant and paramedic, is still running for mayor as voters weigh up the saga.
It was supposed to be the day Rick Shegog finally had his say.
Instead, within hours of walking into Tasmania’s Industrial Commission, the man hoping to become the next mayor of West Tamar had walked away from the fight altogether.
The sudden collapse of his unfair dismissal claim against Ambulance Tasmania has left a quiet municipality north of Launceston facing awkward questions just as residents prepare to choose who will lead their council.
Mr Shegog, the outgoing deputy mayor and a current candidate for the top job, had taken the Department of Health to the commission this year, arguing he had been wrongly sacked from the state ambulance service.
He was dismissed last year over alleged breaches of Ambulance Tasmania’s code of conduct. He had been suspended since September 2022.
Mr Shegog has disputed the allegations.
The department’s position was blunt.
It told the commission he had been let go because of conduct issues and because he had failed to disclose certain matters relating to that conduct.
His legal team pushed back hard.
They argued Ambulance Tasmania either knew, or reasonably should have known, about the very issues it later relied upon to fire him, at the time it took him on.
When the hearing opened, the stakes were immediately clear. The department signalled it intended to call Tasmania Police Commissioner Donna Adams to give evidence, an extraordinary step in a workplace dispute.
Its first witness was described by the department’s lawyer as a victim of sexual harassment. The department asked the commission to suppress that witness’s name.
Then came a second suppression request, this time from Mr Shegog’s own lawyer, who asked that his client’s name also be kept from the public.
The department opposed it, citing the principle of open justice.
A brief adjournment followed. When proceedings resumed, Mr Shegog’s lawyer informed the commission that his client would be discontinuing the case.
No findings were made against Mr Shegog, and the matter now ends without the evidence being tested.
This is not the first time Mr Shegog’s employment has ended in controversy. In 2004 he was dismissed from Tasmania Police after being charged with unlawfully setting fire to property.
Crucially, the Supreme Court found him not guilty of that charge in 2006.
He went on to rebuild a career in emergency services, joining Ambulance Tasmania, while also carving out a place in local politics on the West Tamar Council, where he rose to deputy mayor.
In his official candidacy statement, he presents himself to voters as a former police sergeant who is now a paramedic.
The timing of the hearing, landing squarely in the middle of a mayoral campaign, has thrust a long-running employment dispute into the spotlight at the worst possible moment for a candidate seeking public trust.
Analysis: What This Means for Australia
On its face, this is a local story about one man and one employer. But it touches on issues that ripple well beyond the Tamar Valley.
The first is open justice.
Courts and tribunals across the country routinely weigh requests to suppress names, and the department’s decision to resist the request in this case reflects a principle that underpins public confidence in the justice system: that, outside of genuine need, proceedings should be conducted in the open.
Protecting the identity of a witness described as a harassment victim sits comfortably within established practice. Shielding a party who is simultaneously asking voters to elect him is a far harder argument to make.
The second issue is transparency in local government. Councils control planning approvals, rates and community budgets worth millions of dollars.
Voters are entitled to scrutinise the backgrounds of those seeking office, and they rely on public processes to do so.
The third is the integrity of frontline services. Paramedics and police occupy positions of extraordinary trust, entering homes and dealing with people at their most vulnerable.
How agencies vet staff, and how they handle disclosure obligations, matters to every community that depends on them.
The department’s argument that disclosure failures formed part of the dismissal, and Mr Shegog’s counter that the employer already knew or should have known, goes to the heart of how workplace rights and employer responsibility intersect in sensitive public roles.
With the case withdrawn, none of those competing claims will now be resolved by the commission.
Legal observers say discontinuing a claim is not an admission of anything, and parties withdraw cases for many reasons, including cost, stress and the risk of an uncertain outcome.
Industrial relations specialists note that unfair dismissal hearings can become intensely public affairs, and applicants sometimes reassess their position once the scope of evidence becomes clear.
Local government watchers believe the episode highlights a recurring tension in smaller communities, where candidates are often well known personally and voters may already hold firm views long before polling day.
Governance analysts warn that public confidence in councils depends heavily on perceptions of openness, and that any attempt by a candidate to keep proceedings out of view, however legitimate the legal reasoning, can be politically costly.
Workplace law insiders also point out that disputes over what an employer knew at the time of hiring are common in public sector cases, particularly where staff have prior histories in other government agencies such as Tasmania Police.
For now, the final word belongs to the residents of West Tamar.
Mr Shegog remains on the ballot, and the official result will be determined by voters through the Tasmanian Electoral Commission.
Whether the abandoned case becomes a footnote or a defining moment of the campaign may only be known when the votes are counted.