CFA crisis: Daniel Andrew’s legacy lies in defeat

THE full extent of the damage Premier Daniel Andrews has caused to the federal Labor vote in Victoria is only now emerging.

THE full extent of the damage Premier Daniel Andrews has caused to the federal Labor vote in Victoria is only now emerging. It was daunting enough for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten that a survey published by the Herald Sun revealed more than 40 per cent of voters in the marginal seats of Corangamite, Bruce, Dunkley and McEwen were less likely to vote Labor because of the CFA dispute.

Now it has been revealed that one in four Labor voters in the key seats of Corangamite and McEwen say Mr Andrews’s handling of the dispute is making them less likely to vote Labor on Saturday.

In Bruce, 21 per cent of Labor voters said the issue would make them less likely to vote Labor. In Dunkley, 17 per cent of Labor voters said it would affect how they voted.

Mr Andrews’s intervention has been a disaster for Mr Shorten as he struggles to keep Labor in a winnable position. Federal Labor’s defeat may be the legacy Mr Andrews leaves to the party.

The latest Newspoll shows the Coalition leading Labor in the final week of the campaign by 51 per cent to 49 per cent after preferences.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull stands on the cusp of victory with Labor’s primary vote stuck on 36 per cent to the Coalition’s 43. Mr Turnbull is preferred as PM by 45 per cent of those surveyed, with Mr Shorten on 30 per cent and 25 per cent of voters still undecided.

The Labor leader is falling significantly behind with Newspoll showing no leader has won an election in the past 30 years with a preferred PM rating below 40 per cent. That Mr Andrews could cut the ground from under his federal counterpart with a nonsensical drive to hand control of the CFA to the hardline United Firefighters Union in the middle of an election campaign defies explanation.

The Herald Sun believes Mr Andrews is beholden to the UFU because of an election debt he is now repaying. Mr Andrews and Labor were supported by the firefighters union at the 2014 election that brought the Premier to power.

Union firefighters knocked on doors for Labor votes and handed out how-to-vote cards for Labor while wearing their uniforms at polling booths.

Mr Andrews rammed veto rights over the CFA through his Cabinet, sacking the CFA board and forcing the resignations if his emergency services minister Jane Garrett and CFA chief executive Lucinda Nolan.

Mr Andrews’s irresponsible actions have cost Mr Shorten dearly in political terms, but it is Victorian taxpayers who will bear the financial cost. The union deal brokered by Mr Andrews will see taxpayers forced to pay an estimated $700 million in pay and conditions because of the enterprise bargaining agreement Mr Andrews is pushing through.

Worse for Mr Shorten is that Mr Turnbull has made a commitment to the CFA’s 60,000 volunteers that he will reverse Mr Andrews’s stupidity if he retains government on Saturday.

It is scorched-earth politics on the part of an ideologically driven Mr Andrews and a grim election day for Mr Shorten as voters remember the heroic efforts of the CFA during the disastrous bushfires of Black Saturday when 173 died and more than 400 people were injured.

Had it not been for the devotion to duty of the CFA volunteers, more lives would have been lost.

A political debt and his unionising obsession aside, Mr Andrews’s actions can only harm this most respected of firefighting institutions.

PROTECT OUR FLAG

MOST Victorians will be disturbed to learn that it is not an offence to burn the Australian flag.

Anti-racist demonstrators set fire to flags at a violent confrontation with supporters of the Australian flag’s National Solidarity Walk but escaped charges.

Other countries regard burning their national flag as an offence, but Australia has failed to carry several private member’s Bills through parliament.

The argument that Australia is a democracy and people should have the right to express their opinions doesn’t stand up in the face of what is clearly a national insult to the laws and values that most people adhere to.

Burning the national flag is a serious offence in the United States and one that gives rise to national anger. It raises similar feelings of betrayal in Australia.

Australia is a peaceful country where people of all backgrounds and beliefs are able to express their opinions and their religious beliefs without fear or favour.

However, groups on either side of what could become a damaging cultural divide are using or abusing the flag to promote social disturbance and violent demonstrations such as at rallies in Melbourne on Sunday.

One side wraps itself in the Australian flag to promote its views. Another burns the flag.

Making it a specific offence would be a recognition of the flag’s symbolism to the great majority of Australians through conflict and in peacetime.

It is unacceptable and a national insult for the flag to be burned as a form of political protest.