Election 2016: Labor’s assault on the CFA attacks our heart and soul

AUSTRALIA’S culture of volunteering is part of our social fabric but it’s under threat from a Labor Party that owes a political debt to unions, writes Tony Abbott.

Jane Garrett was an honourable minister.

WHEN Australians see a job that needs to be done, we roll up our sleeves, join our neighbours and make a difference.

It is one of our key virtues as a people. And few better exemplify the “have a go” spirit than the men and women who serve in the Country Fire Authority and all the other volunteer emergency services that keep Australian communities safe.

Every summer, volunteers battle the bushfires that are one of the hazards of living in Australia. Every winter, volunteers are planning, preparing and carrying out the controlled burns needed to limit our summer infernos. And whenever disaster strikes, whether it’s fires, floods, storms or accidents, the volunteers of the CFA — and other agencies — are there to limit the trouble.

Sadly, it’s the volunteers who are in trouble now. They’re not being overwhelmed by the natural and man-made hazards that they train to deal with. They’re being sidelined by the union representing paid firefighters and a Labor Party that puts politics ahead of efficient firefighting. Now it’s our turn to help the people who help us when we need it most. The best way we can help the volunteers of the CFA is to send the strongest message to the Labor Party by putting Labor last at the federal election on July 2 because the firefighters union not only has Premier Daniel Andrews in its pocket, it has Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, too.

Shorten has had several opportunities to speak up for the CFA and for volunteers and has uttered not one syllable of support. He’s happy to sponsor plebiscites on council amalgamations in NSW but has washed his hands of the attempt to emasculate the CFA in Victoria. What Labor is doing to the CFA is not only arrogant and sneaky; it’s un-Australian — and Shorten is being weak and foolish in putting party before country and unions before people.

Bill Shorten is putting party before country and unions before people. Picture: Getty Images

As a volunteer firefighter in NSW, I saw the help that our Victorian comrades gave us in the Blue Mountains fires of Christmas 2001. Along with other volunteers from my district, I went to the Grampians in 2005. That’s what volunteers do: we lend a helping hand wherever we can — but it will be so much harder if the Andrews Government and its union puppetmasters have their way because volunteer firefighting in Victoria will become almost unworkable.

If Andrews and Shorten prevail, volunteers won’t be deployed until seven paid firefighters are already available. Fire trucks won’t be dispatched as soon as they’re ready but only when the union says they can. In other words, the effectiveness of firefighting in Victoria and the future of the CFA as a largely volunteer organisation are in jeopardy because of the political debts that Andrews and Shorten owe to their union paymasters.

This is the pay-off that the firefighters union is demanding from Labor leaders in return for union members’ presence, in uniform, at polling booths across the state at the 2014 election.

To deliver for the union, Andrews has not just agreed to operational rules that make Victorians less safe; an honourable minister in Jane Garrett has resigned and he’s sacked an honourable board that refused to surrender to political blackmail.

The volunteer firefighters of Victoria deserve much better than this. So do all the other volunteers, in organisations such as the State Emergency Services, St John Ambulance and Surf Life Saving Australia. The Andrews doctrine is a slap in the face to all the 25,000 CFA and other volunteers who rallied to help on Black Saturday. The government’s obduracy can mean only one thing: Labor would prefer to put life and property at potential risk than jeopardise its union donations.

In cities and bigger towns, it often makes sense for firefighting agencies to rely on full-time paid personnel. In most villages and country areas, insisting that paid staff are available before anyone else can respond is a recipe for worse fires — but who cares about safer communities if secret deals with union heavies can give Labor a PR advantage on polling day?

This is not an argument over better pay and conditions for workers — this is an assault on the social fabric of Victoria and it must be defeated if our country is to keep its heart and soul.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been a volunteer with the Davidson Rural Fire Brigade since 2000 and prepared this piece for the IPA

Originally published as Election 2016: Labor’s assault on the CFA attacks our heart and soul