Daniel Andrews’ union cash splash in CFA dispute

IT’S becoming clearer that Premier Daniel Andrews is determined to end the long-running CFA dispute with a capitulation to the United Firefighters Union, writes James Campbell.

Daniel Andrews has to get the rest of his government to endorse the CFA move.

IT’S becoming clearer by the day that Premier Daniel Andrews is determined to end the long-running CFA EBA dispute with a complete capitulation to the demands of the United Firefighters Union.

As the Herald Sun reported yesterday, in the Fair Work Commission this week, Tony Bates, the deputy secretary of the Premier’s Department, watched on as the UFU and bureaucrats from Industrial Relations Victoria agreed that Commissioner Julius Roe should hand down recommendations that CFA bosses believe give the union pretty well everything for which it has asked.

Late yesterday Roe dropped the recommendations he was threatening to bring down earlier in the week.

They are as bad as the CFA was expecting and will never be agreed to by the current CFA board.

Senior sources in the government are gravely concerned about the integrity of the process.

Battles will now be fought in Spring St over how the government will respond.

The expectation among informed observers is the Premier will try to move quickly to make the “recs” the official position of the government, probably as soon as he returns from America.

If that is achieved, Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett will either have to toe the line and impose them on the CFA — which, given the statements of its chair yesterday will mean sacking its board and probably its CEO, Lucinda Nolan — or quit. But first Andrews has to get the rest of his government to endorse this.

The question is what mechanism he will try to use to get his way.

He could of course take them to his Cabinet, but that is not considered likely. Insiders say in the short life of this government Dan has been reluctant to chance his arm with the full Cabinet. Decisions are usually pushed off to Cabinet subcommittees and only brought before the full Cabinet for ratification.

The Premier’s chosen vessel for getting the tick-off is expected to be the expenditure review subcommittee of Cabinet. As the name suggests it’s concerned with watching the money.

Which means the man on the spot over the coming days is going to be Treasurer Tim Pallas, who came into his current role with a high reputation for competence. The consensus was that he had been an excellent chief-of-staff to premier Steve Bracks and later a good minister.

Observers worried about what a Labor Government led by the Socialist Left might look like consoled themselves that Pallas would be a safe pair of hands in the Treasury.

It didn’t take them long to be disappointed. Once it became clear that Andrews’s promise that he could get out of building the East West Link without spending any money was fantasy, a competent treasurer with guts would have insisted the government proceed with the project. Instead Pallas rolled over. It is hard to overstate the contempt that some of his Cabinet colleagues hold him in over that decision because, as one former MP said to me recently, the difference between Pallas and the rest of Dan’s inner circle is that “he knows better” but still went along with it.

Opinions differ as to why Pallas has been such a letdown.

One theory expounded by a former colleague is that having got used to being in the inner circle of government under Bracks, he struggled under Brumby, with whom he was not on such intimate terms. In this former minister’s view, Pallas loathed being on the outer and having got back into the centre of things under Andrews is determined to stay there, and never again be left out.

Another Labor figure has a simpler explanation: “He’s a Treasurer who wants to be liked by everybody. That’s not a good thing for a government.”

Now that we have the recs, the only thing standing between them, the CFA and their implementation is the Treasurer.

For, while most of the discussion about what we used to think of as the UFU’s ambit claim has focused on the power it will give the union over the organisation and how it will almost certainly mean the end of its status as a largely volunteer organisation, little attention has been paid to how much the whole thing is going to cost.

Getting it costed — properly — will be the first order of business for the Treasurer. If there is a move to accept the recs before that can be done then we will know the fix is in.

Unfortunately, if it does go that way, it won’t be the first time the Treasurer has signed off on an EBA without any idea what it will cost.

As was recently revealed at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, the Budget lately brought down makes no provision for the nurses’ EBA signed recently, nor the ambulance EBA.

Estimates about how much paying off the UFU is going to cost us range between $600 million and, well, the sky’s limit.

Let’s hope Pallas is prepared to say no.

JAMES CAMPBELL IS STATE POLITICS EDITOR

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