The longstanding and heated disagreement between the Country Fire Authority and the United Firefighters Union over work conditions isn't over yet. After months of brawling, multiple sackings and resignations, federal government and court intervention, and changes to legislation, the issues remain red hot.
But what are they actually disagreeing about? How much longer is it going to go on for? And is our safety coming into the summer season everyone's top priority?
Ashleigh Paholek talks to a CFA volunteer firefighter about her experiences and feelings about the whole mess and looks at the background to the controversial debate.
By ASHLEIGH PAHOLEK
A dry northerly wind whips the browned leaves from the eucalypt and they fall into long yellow grass that rustles like the a rattlesnake shedding its skin.
As the sun dips lower in the sky, the heat is unrelenting and customers are asking to sit inside under the old air-conditioner, despite the open wood fire pizza oven.
Georgia Munro politely tells customers all the tables inside are booked and directs them to tables under the pergola outside.
She is on call tonight; her pager is in her hand, even while waiting on patrons. It's coming up to Christmas and that's a busy time – and not just in the hospitality trade.
Ms Munro has been a member of the CFA volunteer Tallarook Fire Brigade for 10 years – in the junior brigade since she was 12 and graduating to the seniors at 18.
There are about 60,000 volunteer firefighters in Victoria and 800 career staff (paid). Of Victoria’s 1186 fire stations, 32 have both career and volunteer fighters, meaning the overwhelming majority run entirely on good will.
A dispute over an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement has been going on for years between the CFA and the United Firefighters Union (UFU) and it continues to escalate.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull pushed through an amendment to the Fair Work Act in the Senate on October 10, with the intention stopping CFA volunteers being "undermined" by the UFU, and the UFU is now planning a High Court challenge to those laws.
How did this all start and what is going to happen this fire season?
In October 2015 negotiations between the CFA, UFU and the Victorian State Government broke down in a disagreement over pay increases.
The State Government asked for the Fair Work Commission to intervene, and the industrial umpire handed down its verdict on June 1 this year in favour of the UFU. The Commission’s recommendations are not legally binding.
While the dispute originated with pay, it is now about the roles of volunteer firefighters and giving the union veto powers over the CFA in relation to resourcing and equipment.
“The proposed EBA undermines volunteers, our culture, allows the UFU operational and management control of [the] CFA and are discriminatory,” the CFA said in a statement.
Tallarook is a small town of 244 residents just over 100km from Melbourne.
It is a town perched upon the Great Dividing Range with a state forest that spans about 5000 hectares, roughly the size of 12,500 soccer pitches.
The area is unique. Luckily, Ms Munro has grown up there and knows it “like the back of my hand”.
“There are a lot of little bush tracks,” making access and fire prevention activities – “such as clearing or back burning” – very difficult.
“During the summer season it can be very dangerous, especially for those who are new to the area, who may not know that terrain,” Ms Munro says.
This could potentially cause trouble for any career firefighters needing to access the area. A major disagreement between the sides is the notion that seven career firefighters must be present at a scene before any firefighting can start.
But in fact, according to a document released by the CFA, the EBA sets safety parameters for career firefighters in regions where they are in control – that is, in major urban areas. It does not say CFA volunteers may not fight fires before career staff are present in rural areas, where the Metropolitan Fire Brigade does not have responsibility.
“No one is going to turn around and say, ‘sorry I can’t do anything, I’m going to wait for the guys at Craigieburn to come’, no one is going to do that,” Ms Munro says. Craigieburn, the closest integrated station with career fighters, is more than an hour away.
The UFU has the interests of the career MFB at heart as that is the union for the paid fighters; on the flip side, Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria (VFBV) looks after the volunteers’ interests in the CFA.
Both sides agree pay is not the issue. The VFBV has said that “none of our concerns are about the pay and conditions of paid firefighters”. Ms Munro says that of all the volunteers she has spoken to, “not one has denied that [career fire fighters deserve a pay rise]”.
The disagreement stems from past tensions associated with the fact that volunteers and the VFBV had no say in some of the decisions that affected them. In 2000 a CFA volunteer charter was created, including a clause that required the VFBV to be consulted on any matter that could affect volunteers, before final decisions were made.
Clause 6.2 of the EBA would effectively wipe this clause out, stating: “No third party … shall have any right to interfere with the terms and conditions provided for in this agreement.” This "third party" rule would rule out the VFBV.
The CFA says the EBA contains “unlawful terms” and opposes a “consultation clause”, and clause 6.2 is one of those hot issues.
The political fallout has been huge. Victorian Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett resigned from State Cabinet over the issue.
In the middle of June, Premier Daniel Andrews sacked the nine members of the CFA board after they refused to approve the agreement. At the same time, Mr Andrews also accepted the resignation of the CFA CEO Lucinda Nolan.
The second board took eight weeks to endorse the deal.
Federal Government frontbencher Dan Tehan weighed in to the debate. "What I would say to Dan Andrews and the Victorian Labor Government is enough's enough," the Minister for Veterans Affairs and Defence Personnel said.
"There's been enough resignations from within your own government, and from within the board of the CFA.
"Time to admit you got it wrong. Dan Andrews man up and just say, 'I got this wrong, I got it horribly wrong'."
This October, one of four deputy chief officers at the MFB resigned, along with chief officer Peter Rau.
Ms Munro remembers one time, October last year, when she was unpacking her turnout bag at home “making sure that I had fresh socks and Bandaids, because you always need those”, when she got a page. The fire season was starting uncharacteristically early.
It was a Total Fire Ban day, with sweltering heat and extremely windy. Perfect for fires.
The call out was “in a red flag area, a very dangerous area”, for a fire that “people from Melbourne … had not quite smothered … or put it out to the extent that is required to prevent it from flaring up again with a bit of wind.”
When leaving that scene, the strike team got another call, to go to a fire in Lancefield – the 2015 fire that started as a planned burn before it escaped containment lines.
On the Hume highway from Tallarook to Lancefield, Georgia was crew leader, sitting in the front seat of the big red truck. After getting another call for a fire up in the ranges, she had to decide which incident to attend.
“Immediately they called for quite a large number of vehicles, which told us that it was big and they’d called for the heli-attack as well which again told us there was something happening and we needed to be wary.”
The quick decision to go to the Mt Hickey fire in the ranges was made because “there is no one else right now that’s around to get to Tallarook as quickly as we are”.
When the Tallarook, Seymour and Broadford trucks arrived at a campground close to the incident, they could go no further; the wind was bringing the fire down the hill and the road was so narrow that a U-turn in the truck would nearly be impossible if they needed a quick getaway.
It's the kind of stressful decision-making that confronts volunteers every time there's a fire.
“To have a united fire service for the entire state of Victoria in principle and theory as a whole would be fantastic,” Ms Munro said.
However, “each side is pushing their own agendas and I think more than anything, it is probably deteriorating the relationships between a lot of the volunteers and career staff members”, she said.
It was not always so. A few years ago, career staff were called in by the Tallarook brigade when someone had fallen off a cliff in the ranges. A high angle rescue was needed and crew from Dandenong came to help.
At the end of the ordeal one of the volunteer leaders came around with biscuits, lamingtons and coffees for everyone. “It shouldn’t be one or the other.”
If the EBA is enforced, Ms Munro says it could stop people from volunteering. “No one wants to be undervalued or feel worthless.”
Six hours maximum is spent at a scene for the initial firefighting crew and 12 hours for a relief or strike team.
This already makes it difficult for the volunteers to balance work, volunteering and family. “It leaves you very little time,” she said.
“Our members go out for the relief crew or the initial crew or whatever it is, come back, maybe have an hour or two of sleep if anything and then get back onto running the farm because it’s their livelihood.”
The need for volunteer firefighters to have a part-time job as well as the fact that most equipment used by the volunteer brigades is provided through fundraising are two more reasons the CFA was reluctant to sign the EBA.
While the political and legislative process continued, a Supreme Court injunction was handed down on June 10 that required the CFA to enter into meaningful consultation with the UFU.
It could not take immediate effect as the Government stepped in and sacked the CFA board. Instead, the Supreme Court provided the VFBV with a court-supervised process for discussions between the new CFA board and the CEO.
The new board – which includes four volunteer representatives and five others hand-picked by the State Government – endorsed the EBA, against the wishes of the VFBV, which felt the volunteer representatives did not reflect their best interests when they agreed.
It has now been signed off on by the UFU, and will next go to Fair Work to be ratified. However, because of the federal amendments and the High Court case, that step has been delayed while those details are resolved.
The Federal Government’s amendments to the Fair Work Act mean that any part of an EBA relating to interference with an emergency services organisation’s ability to manage and promote its volunteers would become irrelevant.
Victorian Industrial Relations Minister Natalie Hutchins told the ABC that the legislation could bring about court action because it is full of holes.
"It's a pretty poor piece of legislation that's only going to complicate the situation that we currently have in trying to get this EBA through the Fair Work Commission," she said.
The Union is now threatening exactly that, a High Court constitutional case.
Victorian Shadow Attorney General John Pesutto said the challenge meant the CFA crisis “will continue well into the fire season”.
Ms Munro still believes that both the career and volunteer firefighters want the same thing, the safety of Victoria.
“Whatever happens happens, but I hope it happens fast so that we can all get back to our jobs.”