Queensland firefighters wait for state to negotiate before pay deal expires

Queensland’s firefighters’ union is yet to be given the green light from the Crisafulli government to begin enterprise bargaining negotiations, despite their deal being set to expire in two weeks.

Queensland Professional Firefighters Union secretary John Oliver. Picture: Annette Dew

Enterprise bargaining between Queensland’s firefighters and the Crisafulli government has yet to begin, despite the existing agreement being set to expire in two weeks alongside the state’s teachers and police.

The Queensland Professional Firefighters Union is yet to receive an authority from the government to bargain on behalf of its 3200 members, which covers about 98 per cent of the state’s fireys.

QPFU secretary John Oliver said they were waiting for the government to come to the table. “We are ready get into enterprise bargaining and a modest log of claim has been created,” he said. “The meat on the bone can’t, and won’t, be discussed until we have that authority.”

Existing pay agreements with the firefighters, teachers and police are set to expire on June 30, with new deals needed to be finalised by July 31 to secure back pay for workers.

Pay deals with the entirety of the state’s 260,000-strong public service will need to be negotiated with the Liberal National government by early 2026. The initial state wage offer of 3 per cent in 2025 and 2.5 per cent annually in 2026 and 2027 was unanimously rejected earlier this year.

In 2012, Mr Oliver led industrial action against the Liberal National Newman government, after a stalemate in EBA negotiations, which included rallies and strikes.

Members of the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union, whose EBA expired in March, are in the midst of industrial action for the first time in two decades. They say the offers they received failed to maintain “nation-leading pay and conditions” as promised by Premier David Crisafulli at the October state election.

Last week, the QNMU launched an advertising campaign warning that patients would die if workers left for better-paying states, in reference to the 7.1 per cent a year deal recently struck with nurses in Victoria.

The Queensland Teachers Union and the Queensland Police Union have been allowed to negotiate and have presented the government with their demands. However, neither group has received an offer other than the one put to the general service.

The state government has maintained it will “continue to negotiate in good faith” with the public sector.

Union officials are eagerly awaiting the Crisafulli government’s first budget next Tuesday to see how much is allocated to cover the state’s wage bill. Queensland Council of Unions general secretary Jacqueline King has previously warned of rolling strikes should the state fail to find money for “fair and decent” pay rises.

Every percentage point salary rise above the budgeted 2.5 per cent will cost taxpayers an extra $352m a year.

The budget announcement will be followed by a teachers rally; they will gather after school hours in Brisbane to demand nation-leading pay. The voluntary gathering is not official industrial action.

Prior to the state election, The Australian revealed that Queensland’s public service wage bill had ballooned by more than 75 per cent in the near-decade Labor held office, growing from $19.96bn in 2015-16 to $35.22bn in 2023-24.