CFA pay dispute undermines morale, Black Saturday counsel Jack Rush warns

Key Black Saturday bushfires investigator says the Victorian government is damaging the CFA with its pay deal.

Jack Rush last month with members of his local Molyullah CFA, which announced a move to investigate ­becoming independent from the CFA. Picture: Nicole Garmston

A key figure who investigated Victoria’s devastating Black Saturday bushfires says the state government is damaging morale within the CFA and undermining the volunteer organisation.

The attack came as Malcolm Turnbull this morning pledged to make changes to the Fair Work Act his most urgent priority if re-elected on July 2 in a bid to protect the volunteer firefighters from a union takeover.

Jack Rush QC, in an opinion piece published by News Corp Australia newspapers today, says a controversial pay deal with the United Firefighters Union “is contrary to the CFA Act ... and undermines the role and independence of volunteers”.

“Apart from a massive decline in the morale of volunteers across the state, the Andrews government legacy will be to seriously weaken the ethos, independence and ultimately the integrity of one of the great volunteer organisations in the history of Victoria,” Mr Rush wrote before Mr Turnbull met CFA volunteers in Geelong.

“This sorry saga demands a government rethink before it is too late.”

Mr Rush was senior counsel assisting the bushfires royal commission and is a former judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said Mr Rush was “entitled to his view” but insisted the dispute had to end.

The government sacked the CFA board 13 days ago after it repeatedly refused to back the enterprise agreement with the union. “My message to Mr Rush and to all Victorians is this dispute will not be allowed to run into another hot, dangerous, fire season,” Mr Andrews told reporters today.

The Premier said it wasn’t up to the government to decide if the agreement was legal.

That was a job for the Fair Work Commission, he added.

State opposition leader Matthew Guy has called for calm after he received death threats on his Facebook page.

“A lot of people need to calm down and behave sensibly in this whole discussion,” the Liberal leader told reporters.

The Prime Minister attended an early morning roundtable discussion with firefighters in Geelong, promising to immediately change workplace laws if re-elected to prevent volunteer groups from being made subordinate to union demands.

Mr Turnbull attended the event with the local Liberal MP in the marginal seat of Corangamite, Sarah Henderson, and was flanked at the roundtable discussion by the state president of Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria, Nev Jones, as well as the chief executive, Andrew Ford.

Mr Turnbull claimed that the state Labor government’s accomodation of union demands in the bitter dispute between volunteer and career firefighters provided a glimpse of how Bill Shorten would run the country if elected on July 2.

The Victorian Labor government led by Daniel Andrews has backed the United Firefighters Union in its long-running struggle with the much larger volunteer based Country Fire Authority.

But Mr Turnbull has transformed the issue into a national case study of union militancy to buttress his case for changes improving union governance rules and to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

The firefighters dispute has escalated during the federal campaign in a major distraction for Mr Shorten, with Mr Andrews sacking his dissident emergency services minister Jane Garrett and the board of the CFA to clear the path for the approval of the UFU backed enterprise agreement.

Addressing a gathering of volunteer firefighters concerned at the enterprise agreement, Mr Turnbull said a reflected Coalition government would protect volunteerism.

“We will protect you seeking to defend the people of Victoria and, of course, people around Australia,” he said. “We will protect you, but we can only do that if we are returned to government.”

“If Sarah (and) my colleagues are returned to government, then we will immediately, the parliament resumes, amend the Fair Work Act to ensure the Victorian government cannot have its way and subordinate you to the union. That is my commitment. That is my absolute commitment.”

- Joe Kelly and AAP