Ignorance still prevails among The Age’s senior staff, judging by a recent editorial.
It seems nothing has changed since an appallingly fallacious editorial by The Age in September 2016 provided the immediate impetus to begin the EBA Truth project. Since that time The Age has lost key staff who worked on fire services topic, including former state politics editor Josh Gordon and former state political correspondent Richard Willingham. Former editor Mark Forbes also departed, after allegations of sexual harassment were made against him. Editorials are published without a byline, so it is not possible to hold any individual to account when an editorial displays blinding ignorance and unflinching slant. If one of these three penned the shockers of 2016, last week’s editorial shows there must be someone equally uninformed who has taken up where they left off.
Let’s dive in and see just how wrong they are.
Claim: A report exposed by The Age ‘uncovered rampant bullying and harassment, along with allegations of sexual crime, in the Country Fire Authority.’
Reality: Whilst the allegations raised would appear highly concerning and demand investigation, the report pertained to non-operational staff only. Those staff do not work at integrated fire stations, and the vast majority of firefighters rarely if ever come into contact with them. It is disingenuous to infer ‘rampant’ poor behaviour from data taken from an entirely separate context to the workplaces of the majority of CFA employees. And, considering the documented morale crisis attributed in part to media vilification, it is downright reckless and irresponsible to overtly misrepresent the report as having implicated firefighters.
Claim: The United Firefighters Union is ‘considered by many’ to be the cause of ‘a culture of combat and distrust between management and staff’.
Reality: Considered by who, and how many? The 3000-odd dedicated, psych-, cognitive- and character-screened full-time firefighters who are members of the UFU and form 98% of the professional firefighting workforce in Victoria certainly do not agree with this claim. Is ‘considered by many’ another way of saying ‘I reckon’? The author of this editorial makes reference to ‘internal reviews’ but apparently has not read the report of the Fire Services Review, which levels withering criticism almost exclusively at senior management and the previous government for the aforementioned culture of combat and distrust.
Given the counterfactual assertion made by the editorial, perhaps the ‘many’ who blame the UFU refers to former senior management and Board figures, to whom both The Age and The Herald Sun frequently appeal as supposedly authoritative. Who are they? Are they among those slammed by the Fire Services Review for waging ‘industrial war’ on their own workforce, in the name of the Coalition’s ‘deliberately ideological attack on the UFU’? Did they participate in the CFA’s bid to renege on safe crewing commitments, rejected by the Federal Court? Or the MFB’s bid to renege on consultation commitments, rejected by the Fair Work Commission as harmful to firefighter safety?
Or, are they among those implicated by the Fiskville Inquiry for knowingly exposing firefighters to harm, at least one of whom committed an offence?
These people are in no position to offer a credible opinion on the UFU or its members. Their track record offers ample evidence — consistently and studiously ignored by The Age — as to why the expert professional judgement of firefighters leads them in overwhelming numbers to unite as a union to secure their workplace rights and safety. We have to, if we want to come home to our families at the end of each shift.
Claim: Jane Garrett quit as Minister after after ‘Premier Daniel Andrews inexplicably intervened last year.’
Reality: Daniel Andrews intervened after Garrett and the CFA Board refused to comply with the Fair Work Commission’s Final Recommendation for the resolution of a long-running dispute concerning the proposed CFA Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. For The Age to omit that crucial fact and declare the intervention ‘inexplicable’ reflects either an extraordinary level of ignorance, or an extraordinary willingness to mislead the public. But we already knew that: The Age made the same omission in its September 2016 editorial.
The statement issued by Garrett’s replacement, James Merlino, clearly marks the Fair Work Commission’s Final Recommendation as a reason for the intervention. Additionally it cites the Fire Services Review and Fiskville Inquiry, the damning findings of which I touched upon above. Jane Garrett had not acted adequately upon either report, preferring instead to bury the Fire Services Review and embark on an anti-firefighter PR campaign, ignore the Fair Work Final Recommendation, and dig in to continue the dispute the Coalition had started.
Had she done her job in a timely manner, in my view, the past two years of fire services crisis may never have occurred. Witness the positive seachange at Ambulance Victoria after Andrews swiftly sacked the Board that presided over the ambulance crisis, which was installed by the coalition government. The positive progress achieved through a constructive culture of collaboration between management and the workforce is undeniable, despite The Age’s desperate attempts to find fault with dramatic service delivery improvements.
Claim: ‘The enterprise agreement remains unsigned and legislation to reform the fire services has not progressed.’
Reality: These claims are true, but The Age incorrectly implies that blame lies with the union or the government. Both parties have done everything within their power to make those things happen. The EBA remains unsigned because a campaign of outright lies empowered a coalition Federal Government to tamper with the Fair Work Act in order to render it impossible. (I am not making this up. Follow the hyperlinks.) Fire service reform remains stalled in the upper house, because the Coalition and some crossbenchers have elected to put political point-scoring ahead of heeding the impassioned pleas for urgent reform delivered by the state’s most senior fire service leaders and over 1000 professional firefighters. But of course, Age readers know nothing about those pleas. They were met with a media blackout.
Those reforms are desperately needed, both to rectify glaring deficiencies in public safety and firefighter safety, and to rebuild morale and constructive relationships. We do not need a judicial review, as Matthew Guy wanted last week, and neither do we need a Royal Commission as he wants this week. Like all firefighters I’ve spoken to, I’m 100% behind what CFA Chief Officer Steve Warrington told the fire reform inquiry:
For The Age to cite the stalling of the EBA and the stalling of fire service reform as a reason to support Matthew Guy’s call for another inquiry frankly beggars belief. Not only will another inquiry stall reform for even longer. Matthew Guy’s Liberals caused the EBA to stall, they caused the divisions that precipitated a mental health crisis that only structural reform can fix, they caused fire reform to stall, and they caused the culture of combat discussed earlier. Matthew Guy himself played a critical role in the lie campaign that blocked the EBA, penning this hugely damaging blatant lie in the Herald Sun:
The Age Must Shape Up
For an influential and once-respected outlet like The Age to be so, so wrong about such an important issue is deeply disappointing, and strongly contrary to the public interest.
If anyone at The Age has any moral conscience at all, I urge you: talk to CFA Chief Officer Steve Warrington. Talk to Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley. Talk to the 3000 dedicated professionals who have devoted their careers to helping the public, or talk to our representative body: the United Firefighters Union. We know a few things you clearly don’t.
