CFA restructure: Labor accused of ‘playing politics’ on fireys’ cancer

THE son of a former CFA chief who exposed the serious cancer risks in firefighting has hit out at the Labor government for playing politics with Victoria’s fireys and their families.

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THE son of a former CFA chief who exposed the serious cancer risks in firefighting has hit out at the Labor government for playing politics with Victoria’s fireys and their families.

Mark Potter said his father, former CFA chief officer Brian Potter, would have been bitterly disappointed proposed cancer compensation laws had been attached to a politically divisive Bill to restructure the state’s fire services.

“I genuinely believe the government is politicising the serious issue of cancer in firefighters,” Mr Potter said. “One part of the Bill is about the health and wellbeing of firefighters injured in the line of their firefighting work; the other is about a structural change in the fire service.”

He said the two issues were unrelated and should never have been ­included in the same piece of proposed legislation.

It comes as United Firefighters Union boss Peter Marshall has urged all of his members to pressure their local MPs into passing “both pieces of legislation at the same time”.

Mark Potter with a picture of his dad who died due to poisoning from the CFA Fiskville Training centre. Picture: Norm Oorloff

The Andrews government has angered volunteer firefighters, who have been fighting for presumptive cancer compensation laws for years, by attaching the Bill to its controversial plan to split the CFA.

Under the government’s plan, the 35 CFA stations, with both career and volunteer staff, would be given to a new career-only service called Fire Rescue Victoria, which will also take in all stations from the MFB.

Brian Potter, who exposed the Fiskville Training College contamination scandal in 2011, prompting debate on the new compensation laws, died in February 2014.

He had expressed his disappointment at the “politicisation” of the issue.

“I guess we came to realise … they had no intention of providing support,” he said after a similar private member’s Bill, introduced by Greens MP Colleen Hartland, didn’t gain Upper House support three years ago. The then Coalition government was “not convinced there was a direct link between cancer and the firefighters”.

Former CFA chief officer Brian Potter, who blew the whistle on the Fiskville scandal.

Mark Potter said the inclusion of the cancer compensation plan with the fire serv­ice restructure Bill was “no different to when the Coalit­ion government filibustered the private member’s Bill”.

“It is appalling that such a well-proven reason for giving cancer-stricken firefighters compensation is being obstructed yet again,” he said.

“Every day, we are still hearing of firefighters being diagnosed with cancers that should be covered automatically by our compo laws. Yet six years after my dad brought it to light, we’re still seeing this sort of thing.”

Brian Potter’s wife, Diane, is still in a legal fight for compensation for her husband’s multiple cancers and rare auto-­immune disease, which killed him. She believes his cancers could be shown to be directly linked to his time working at Fiskville, which closed because of contamination in March 2015, and to his career fighting fires.

The Herald Sun exposed the Fiskville scandal in 2011, with a parliamentary inquiry later reviewing the CFA’s practices at the training college near Ballan, and recommending compensation for those who became ill with cancer after serving at ­Fiskville.

A training burn at CFA's Fiskville training centre about 1979.

Mrs Potter said the presumptive legislation for which Mr Potter fought would not help her family gain justice for his work-­related illnesses.

The CFA’s insurer has twice turned down the Potters’ application for worker’s compensation, lodged before he died.

“This is why this presumptive legislation is so important — so that firefighters and their families don’t have to go through what we’ve endured,” Mrs Potter said.

Her lawyer, Leah James, said attempts to meet with the government had been “fobbed off”.

As the volunteers are fighting for the government to split the Bills, Mr Marshall wrote to UFU members on Friday urging them to contact their local MPs to back the government’s radical restructure of the fire services.

In the email, seen by the Herald Sun, Mr Marshall attached a template for union members to fill out, sign and send to politicians in Victoria’s Upper House.

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@ruthlamperd