Controversial fire services bill passes Victorian parliament

The Andrews government has finally delivered the controversial fire services reforms after four-and-a-half years.

Gavin Jennings in the Upper House. Picture: Nicole Garmton

It may have taken four-and-a-half years and seen the resignations of a minister and two fire chiefs, but the Andrews government has finally succeeded in delivering the controversial fire services reforms long demanded by the powerful United Firefighters Union.

Late on Thursday night the bill passed state parliament’s upper house 21 votes to 18, with the support of 17 Labor MPs and four of 11 crossbenchers, including Green Samantha Ratnam, Reason Party leader Fiona Patten, the Animal Justice Party’s Andy Meddick and independent Catherine Cumming.

The bill will see the Country Fire Authority’s 1220 brigades become volunteer-only body, with career CFA firefighters currently based at 38 regional an outer-metropolitan locations merged with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade to become a single, statewide organisation known as Fire Rescue Victoria, in a move which has been portrayed as a union power grab by volunteer firefighters and the state opposition.

The new model will not come into effect until mid-2020, meaning the 2019-20 fire season will be fought under the current arrangements.

A less controversial part of the bill will also grant presumptive compensation rights to firefighters for specified forms of cancer which were likely to be caused by their work.

Government leader in the upper house, Gavin Jennings, acknowledged that the bill “came with a lot of scar tissue and a lot of pain”, as the final vote was conducted.

“I hope with the passing of this bill that scar tissue can heal,” Mr Jennings said.

Militant UFU boss Peter Marshall was seen in parliament this week lobbying crossbenchers, and a group of UFU members cheered from the public gallery as the bill was passed.

Former Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett, who is now an upper house MP, was among those who voted in favour of the bill.

Ms Garrett resigned as minister at the height of the UFU’s industrial dispute with CFA volunteers in 2016, refusing to co-operate with Premier Daniel Andrews’s decision to side with the union.

The Andrews government sacked the entire CFA board that year, and the CFA’s first female chief, Lucinda Nolan, and chief fire officer Joe Buffone, were among others who resigned.

The union was also successful in its Court of Appeal bid to keep the findings of a report by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission into allegations of discriminatory workplace practices and bullying in the state’s metropolitan and regional fire services secret.

Labor’s first bid to pass the bill failed on Good Friday last year, when Liberal MPs Craig Ondarchie and Bernie Finn were granted pairs on religious grounds but returned to the chamber at the last minute to vote against the bill.

Victorian Volunteer Fire Brigades Chief Executive Adam Barnett said many CFA volunteers would be “incredibly disappointed” that the bill had passed.

“While many will go to bed tonight feeling betrayed and broken-hearted, all of them should sleep with a clear conscience,” Mr Barnett said.

“They have articulated their concerns, they have diligently put on public record their expert advice and analysis, and they have shared their vast knowledge and experience in warning of the dangers and unintended consequences that accompany such rash and ill-conceived arrangements to our fire services as those proposed in this bill.”

“That their warnings and advice have gone unheeded by such a slim majority, that the promises and commitments made to the selfless men and women of our fire services through the Volunteer Charter have been so blatantly ignored by those supporting this bill, and that our parliamentary checks and balances have allowed such significant structural changes without any evidence, any modelling or any plan is extraordinary.

“These will be matters of deep disappointment for volunteers for quite some time.”