Underlying VFBV’s obstruction of the CFA EBA is a mentality of petty turf warfare. It’s a mindset that began 130 years ago. Then, as now, progress in the name of public safety faced opposition in the name of misplaced territorialism. With that in mind, this article is a bit of a change of pace. The historical context of this dispute is well worth taking a bit of time to delve into.
The 1880s Fire Service Turf War
The CFA and MFB as we know them were born of the Government’s 1890 intervention in bitter turf war that had erupted into violence. This was the culmination of decades of tensions between the two categories of fire brigades in Melbourne: insurance brigades and volunteer brigades.
The insurance brigades were crewed by paid firemen. These sprang up in the 1840s, after two catastrophic house fires in Melbourne prompted the Port Philip Gazette to point out that that not providing any means to put out fires represented “unpardonable neglect” on the part of the insurance company.
Volunteer brigades began to be formed in the 1850s, often at the urging of Americans who had come for the gold rush, and brought American firefighting traditions with them. At that time in the USA, volunteer firefighting was central to civic pride and social status (though, by the 1860s, fighting between rival volunteer brigades had prompted professionalisation of the fire services in most cities). Volunteer brigades were established in goldfields towns and Melbourne in the 1850s, and in farming towns over the coming decades.
By the 1870s volunteer fire brigades had started to become a political force. 1873 saw the first of what became annual torchlight parades and demonstrations, 500 country and city volunteers proudly parading through Melbourne following the template of similar displays in the USA. An enthusiastic crowd of over 5000 watched on, and numbers of participants grew year on year, although the press response was not always positive:
The inaugural demonstration was used as an opportunity to lobby the colonial Government to legislate for proper regulation and control of the fire services. The insurance brigade soon began to call for the same, but it would be 17 years before their combined efforts came to fruition.
During that period, tensions grew between insurance and volunteer brigades. After the 1884 demonstration cost the government £2500, the insurance brigade ceased to support it. From 1883, concerned that volunteer brigades lacked organising oversight and discipline, and caused excessive water damage, the insurance industry offered to help fund volunteer brigades if they agreed to follow the orders of the superintendent of the insurance brigade and refrain from using large diameter hoses. Those brigades accepting the deal were scorned by those who did not.
Animosity grew even greater in 1887, when London Metropolitan Fire Brigade veteran D. J. Stein was appointed Superintendent of Melbourne’s Insurance Companies’ Brigade. Evidently unimpressed with the state of the Victorian fire services, Stein complained that it would appear impossible to work with the ‘larrikins’ in the volunteer brigades.
Stein’s provocative comments attracted the ire of the volunteer association. When Stein moved to form a new association that would work more co-operatively the insurance brigade, the existing association felt insulted by the challenge to what it saw as the rightful dominance of volunteers, and expressed this publicly with a resolution:
That the brigades of the colony, as represented in the national association, view with indignation the attempt to interfere with the fire brigade service made by the servant of a private trading association, and will resist to the utmost any attempt to create dissensions among brigades in the country and metropolitan associations.
On 28th December 1888, these tensions erupted finally erupted into violence. At two fires running, blows were exchanged after the volunteer brigades refused to heed Stein’s calls to use smaller hoses to minimise water damage, and a “general melee” ensued. The next day, the Mayor intervened, issuing a public notice designating Stein as the chief officer of all brigades, insurance and volunteer, at fires in the City of Melbourne.
Reportedly, discipline and coordination improved as a result. Nevertheless, two fires and a torchlight procession took the lives of six firemen over the course of 1889.
Under the pressure of these events, the government finally proposed a bill for control of the fire services in late 1890. Initially slated to place all firefighting under the control of a single board, the country volunteers’ association successfully lobbied parliament for the creation of separate country and metropolitan boards.
The Fire Brigades Act was passed in December 1890, creating as a result in 1891 a Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board responsible for areas within 10 miles of Melbourne, and a Country Fire Brigades Board with control of all other brigades in Victoria. The MFB, with Stein as superintendent, gained control of all existing metropolitan brigades, and moved them to a model of a paid workforce under the control of the central authority. (Some, but not all volunteers took paid positions with the MFB; this was literally ‘permanent’ employment, with continuous duty for all but 24 hours of each week.)
From what I have read, the fire services of metropolitan Melbourne functioned smoothly from that point in time. The solution was drastic but effective: geographical separation between the paid and volunteer fire services. Much needed improvements in coordination and control came about, and the turf war was ended.
Aside: The Role of the Press
During the 1880s dispute, the conservative press (notably The Argus) strongly supported the paid insurance fire service. Its commentary against volunteer brigades reached a level of sensational negativity that rivals that launched by the present-day right-wing media (notably The Herald Sun and 3Aw) against paid firefighters. How things change!
If only for the sake of contrast, it’s worth looking at an example. Here is The Argus’ take on the events of 28th December 1888:
The Argus clearly pulled no punches here, sledging volunteers — “a band of mischievous nondescripts” — at least as heavily as James Campbell and Neil Mitchell sledge career firefighters today.
Why the difference in targets? My guess is the right-wing media will always go into bat for entrenched power. At that time, it was in the interests of the insurance industry (and their clients) to have a disciplined, professional fire service. Since then, the paid fire services have become unionised, and it is in the broader interests of the corporate sector to oppose unions, because fair workplace safety, conditions and pay eats into profit.
The 1940s Urban-Rural Turf War
The 1940s was the next great era of change in the Victorian fire services. Like in the 1880s, change was needed in order to bring firefighting under more effective coordination and control. And, like in the 1880s, one party saw itself as being on the receiving end of a territorial power grab, and government intervention was needed to force the necessary progress.
The issue this time was rural firefighting. Although the 1890 Fire Brigades Act had vested authority in the CFBB to fight fires in all country areas, in reality its brigades were based in country towns, and focussed on fighting building fires. Starting in 1892 and gathering pace with time, grassroots bush fire brigades sprang up across rural Victoria. Lacking interest from CFBB, they operated independently, enjoying none of the legal protections of CFBB brigades, and formed their own association, the Rural Fire Brigades Association.
In the wake of the devastating 1939 Black Friday bushfires, a Royal Commission found that these brigades needed to be brought under effective control, for the purposes of resourcing and of coordination at large fires. After years of debate and dispute, this was implemented by Government through the Country Fire Authority Act (1944), creating a new authority — the CFA — that incorporated all that was the CFBB, plus the bush fire brigades.
This decision faced a fierce backlash from the bush brigades. The CFA was run, in large part, by the former management of the CFBB. The involvement of a remote, Melbourne-based management structure was seen by the bush brigades as unwanted interference, offensive to the rural traditions of self-reliance and making do. As such, the creation of the CFA was widely described in territorial terms as a “takeover”. Many brigades considered refusing to come under CFA control, and the decision may have cost the Country-Liberal Party coalition government the 1945 election. The issue stayed hot for years, the Country Party securing amendments on behalf of the rural association after the resumption of coalition government in 1948.
At the local level, too, rivalry created tensions in many areas where Urban and Rural Fire Brigades overlapped in their response and competed for control at fires. Rural brigades viewed with suspicion the apparent predilection of urban volunteer brigades to parade in dress uniform and to defer continually to a central, city-based authority. It took decades for these tensions to dissipate. The Urban and Rural Volunteer Associations remained separate entities until 2008 (forming Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria), and most CFA brigades are still named as either Urban or Rural.
Of course, the sky didn’t fall. The CFA went from strength to strength, fighting large bushfires by coordinating resources drawn for the first time from across the state, with hundreds of rural brigades emerging from the 1950s with new fire stations and trucks provided by CFA.
In public image at least, the bush brigades won this struggle for dominance. The bushfire-fighting “tin shed brigades” that dominate public consciousness of the CFA today are the direct descendants of the bush fire brigades, supplemented by CFA building and resourcing programs from the 1950s onwards. But the urban volunteer identity still persists, and in a return to the 1880s, finds itself now once more digging in to turf warfare with the paid fire service.
The Present Dispute
The next great change to the Victorian fire services is the one we are suffering through right now. Like in the 1880s and in the 1940s, change is required for the sake of safety and operational effectiveness, but the necessary change is resisted by some parties, who respond with indignation to the perception that their independence, autonomy or ascendancy will be diminished.
The crux of the problem is most easily seen in the form of a map. (Even a poorly crafted attempt like this — my apologies.)
As the map shows, the metropolitan area of Melbourne has expanded well beyond the MFB boundary defined in 1891, and indeed, well beyond the existing boundary, which has changed little over recent decades. Beyond the bottom edge of this map, the now heavily populated Mornington Peninsula extends a considerable distance. In fact, less than 40% of the present metropolitan area falls within the MFB boundary. In addition, many regional towns and cities are now heavily populated and urbanised.
It has been recognised since the 1880s that dense urban areas demand the extra speed and reliability of response that can only be achieved using paid firefighters. The sensible response to urban expansion would have been to incrementally adjust the boundary of MFB territory, incorporating the growth of Melbourne and adding regional cities when appropriate. Despite repeated calls from disparate quarters, political pressures have prevented this from occurring. Instead, over the decades CFA has introduced its own paid firefighters, although not to a sufficient level to match the service delivery and firefighter safety standards the MFB achieves in adjacent urban areas. Few seem willing to risk offending volunteers by calling for improvement.
The loudest call for adequate staffing levels in the CFA is coming from paid firefighters themselves. After all, it is their safety that is most directly compromised when they tackle building fires with crews of just 3 or 4, often for an extended period until volunteer backup arrives. In times gone by they faced even greater peril, many brigades having just a single career officer who started the firefight alone while waiting for volunteers. Union pressure over the past 15 years has brought about crews of 3 at most staffed stations, but still this is inadequate in areas where there is no staffed supporting brigade. The safety of the public is imperiled along with that of firefighters.
Here is a horrific illustration of the dangers of this circumstance. A crew of 4 was unable to search a burning building for a missing mother and baby, or to administer first aid to a severely burned man, because they were forced to wait 5 minutes for volunteer support to arrive. This is excerpted from the submission made by Hoppers Crossing Fire Brigade, to the Senate Inquiry into the ill-named Fair Work Amendment (Respect for Emergency Services Volunteers) Bill 2016.
Submissions from Hallam, Rowville, Ballarat City, Melton, and Bendigo Fire Brigades provide further case studies where only pure luck avoided a catastrophic outcome, because of CFA’s failure to roll out a fully functioning modern fire service in busy urban areas. The frequency with which volunteer response fails to provide adequate, timely support to staff crews in the metropolitan area is illustrated in the following log of calls attended by Rowville CFA supported by Scoresby CFA:
Statistical data presented by the United Firefighters Union to the recent Parliamentary Inquiry into Fire Season Preparedness also paints a picture of widespread failure of volunteer response to meet service delivery standards in dense urban areas.
Many submissions to the Senate Inquiry also point out the dangerous consequences of CFA’s frequent refusal to meaningfully consult with paid firefighters. The headline issue here is Fiskville:
But other important, if less spectacular failures have come about through CFA’s refusal to consult with the domain experts: its own firefighters. Submissions to the Senate Inquiry list many examples, including an expensive new radio network that performs very poorly, trucks that cannot fit drivers taller than 5'11", a truck that could not fit inside its designated station, and a ladder with a 2.5 m gap in it. Sometimes consultation does occur, and many submissions highlight safety improvements so achieved.
Clearly, significant change is needed in order to meet modern standards of workplace and community safety in outer Melbourne and regional centres, but as was the case in the 1880s and the 1940s, the necessary change is meeting resistance.
History Repeats: Current Opposition to Reform
At the behest of the volunteer association (Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria), hundreds of volunteers have made submissions to the Senate Inquiry, voicing their opposition to the reforms encapsulated in the presently disputed CFA Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. These submissions provide a valuable written record of the types of concerns volunteers have expressed verbally in the radio and television media for the past several months.
Echoes of the 1880s and 1940s dispute reverberate throughout these submissions. Reading them, it is clear that the mentalities of both the 1880s anti-staff turf war and the 1940s anti-city turf war live on in CFA, and are being brought to bear in opposition to the CFA EBA.
The 1880s complaint stems from the belief that volunteer firefighting is inherently of superior virtue than paid firefighting, yielding an ideological opposition to the move to a professional response, even in dense urban areas. Harking right back to the value system imported from the USA in the 1850s, subscribers to this belief system place (often covertly or unconsciously) a heavy emphasis on the pride conferred upon them as volunteer firefighters, and the central role the fire brigade plays in their life outside of paid work. The move to a staff-led response in dense urban areas— which is furthered by this EBA but also pre-dates it — offends that value system, irrespective of the clear safety benefits. It is seen as an attack, justification to dig in for turf warfare. Former CFA Chairman John Peberdy encapsulated this view with a complaint reminiscent of the volunteer association’s 1888 resolution of “indignation”:
What they’re trying to do is fundamentally change CFA and make us a career fire brigade supported by volunteers and I think that’s an insult to every volunteer in Victoria.
Peberdy’s comments refer fairly directly to legislation introduced by the coalition in 2011, backed by the CFA and VFBV, which seeks to ossify the CFA’s 19th-century service model by declaring that
The Parliament recognises that the Authority is first and foremost a volunteer-based organisation, in which volunteer officers and members are supported by employees in a fully integrated manner.
The clear intent of this clause is to subordinate employees as of inferior importance to volunteers. Career firefighters prioritise safety over pride, and would be unlikely to be bothered by such a statement, except for the fact that the statement is used to compromise safety. But to Peberdy, any reform that increases the role of employees, or their input into matters affecting them, is not seen as a safety improvement. Instead, it is seen as contrary to the proper value hierarchy, or as an attempt to invert it: to make volunteers into the “second-class citizens” the Act currently demands that employees are.
The non-negotiable view that volunteer-led response is always best was held by the volunteer association of the 1880s and has continued unbroken to its present incarnation, VFBV. Thus, despite claiming to have no interest in interfering with the pay and conditions of staff, VFBV’s submission to the Senate Inquiry demands that CFA sticks with a “community embedded and volunteer based service model” — presumably throughout its territory, regardless of urban risk profile, or the safety risks to paid firefighters working in conditions of understaffing.
VFBV’s statements are moderated by its desire to appear to be prioritising community safety over volunteer pride. Other submissions are less careful. For example, VFBV District 8 President Eric Collier complains in his submission that the EBA would “marginalise” volunteers and “seek to destroy the volunteer ethos”. Collier’s submission to the Fire Services Review goes further, attacking paid firefighter response as “over-servicing”. The faster response provided by staff is unnecessary, says Collier.
The delays inherent to volunteer response mean that even in those areas serviced by volunteer-only brigades, the first fire truck to arrive is often a staffed appliance from a neighbouring suburb. Other times the staffed truck arrives second, as backup. The logical conclusion to draw from either circumstance is that staff response offers considerable safety advantages and should be implemented throughout dense urban areas. But Collier’s angle is different:
Incredibly, if the community receives a faster response to a time-critical emergency, this is a problem for Collier because it means that volunteers don’t get to do as much work. For him, feelings of volunteer pride should take priority over community safety. In fact, in Collier’s view there should be volunteers in the MFB. The 1880s turf warrior mentality lives on.
Other submissions to the Senate Inquiry echo the same mentality of the moral superiority of volunteers under supposed threat by advancement of the role and safety of career firefighters:
- Leslie King says “The CFA volunteer has been the back bone of Victoria providing a service for FREE serving the community in times of need. You now have a union wanting to destroy this structure through their greed and power play.”
- Chris Jones asserts that “this EBA is undoubtedly a takeover of a proud organisation” and calls on the Senate to “protect the proud volunteers who serve their country ‘FOR FREE’ each and every day”
- Andrew Chatham complains “Why put in the hours as a volunteer in the CFA if it’s not appreciated or respected.”
- Graeme Renwick kindly explains that “Any clause that sets the volunteers as something less than equal to the paid staff should be removed after all look at the number of volunteers to paid staff. YOU *^*&$#* OFF THE VOLS YOU STAND TO LOOSE THE FIRE SERVICE MAIN WORFORCE.”
- Tom Morley says he is “scared that we would become the second class citizen in the organisation” which is pushing him “to just give up on volunteering with the CFA, go join the footy club or maybe the Army Reserves instead. But in my heart someone needs to be here for the community, the town, my children’s future.”
- SES Volunteer Steven Hicks complains, without regard for the public safety implications, that the EBA could reduce the role of SES volunteers in road accident rescue, and suggests that “the CFA is an authority that exists primarily for” CFA volunteers.
- Eddie Matt asserts that “volunteers are the frontline of fire
suppression in our state … supported by staff … not the other way around.” - Fiona Burns says “the Parliament is founded on the democracy of this country — I ask you exercise that democratic responsibility to enshrine the rights of volunteers from those who would seek to destroy the ethos of volunteerism”
- Robert Bethell complains that “the current union push is an attempt to disenfranchise volunteers altogether”, referring to the improvements in safe staffing levels under previous EBAs as “whittling away at the relevance of volunteers”
- David Gamble complains that volunteers should be issued with station uniforms, citing an example where he suffered burns after attending a fire without wearing his issued firefighting protective clothing.
- Anthony Wright says he is “totally opposed to replacing volunteers with paid staff” (anywhere, presumably)
- Peter Jenkin thinks “volunteers will be treated as second class just because they are not paid,” complaining that nothing should change, because “CFA was formed by volunteers and that permanent firefighters were only brought into the CFA to support the volunteer firefighters”
- Terry Hedt asserts that “paid fire-fighters regard volunteers as second class citizens and pawns in their grab for power”
- Wayne Bourke says that “volunteers are treated as second class citizens” and complains about the lack of station/street uniform for volunteers.
- Tim Buckley says “the UFU wants volunteers to be second class citizens”
- John Fleming declares “I am not prepared to put MY LIFE at risk by some untrained & unqualified UNION”
- Joan McGrath says the EBA “makes us the second class citizens”
- Peter Frank Raisin explicitly declares war on the “pure evil that is threatening us”
- Christine Fyffe MP (Liberal Party) argues the EBA will “dismantle the CFA”, will “treat volunteers as second class”, contrary to her belief that “CFA should and always be overwhelmingly a Volunteer organisation”
- Trevor Harding objects that the UFU wants to “move the CFA from a volunteer organisation supported by staff, to a staff firefighting service supported by volunteers”
- Keith Clough complains of “external influence treating volunteers as a inferior partner in a volunteer based organisation”
- Claire Griffiths complains that volunteers “are being to made feel second rate, and under-valued”
- Frank Tobin says the “EBA has questioned the value of volunteers and the work they undertake for Victoria”
- James Kelly believes volunteers in outer Melbourne are “now at risk
of becoming irrelevant by being bypassed by paid firefighters”, and asks for protection against “the rapacious demands of the militant and uncompromising secretary of, and the United Firefighters Union” - Phillip Lind complains that the EBA will change the fact that “The CFA is a volunteer based organisation supported by paid personal”
Again and again, the 1880s-style claim pops up that the existence of paid firefighters and particularly any increase in their numbers or ability to have input into decisions that affect them is unacceptable because it offends territorial volunteer pride. Staff must be subordinate or volunteers will feel like second-class citizens. The safety improvements delivered by these reforms — for firefighters and for the public — don’t rate a mention, because safety is not a priority.
As an antidote to these complaints, everyone should read the submission of CFA and Ambulance Victoria volunteer and former Mayor of Hume Casey Nunn, who experienced first hand the transition in her growing community to staff-based response both in the CFA and in AV, and embraced both, in the interests of community safety. This is the attitude volunteers ought to have, if safety is their priority. Humility serves the community better than pride.
1940s-style complaints also abound in the submissions to the Senate Inquiry. In the 1940s, rural volunteers resented the “takeover” of the bush fire brigades by what they viewed as a hostile and illegitimate outside force: the city-based, town-oriented CFBB leaders who were in control of the newly-created CFA. In their view, the bush brigades were autonomous, self-sufficient entities that neither wanted nor needed to be subject to outside influence, regardless of the coordination and resourcing benefits delivered.
Very much the same dynamic has played out during the present dispute, except this time the supposedly hostile invader is the United Firefighters Union, and the threat to rural brigades is pure fiction. Coalition MPs and the media have spoken consistently of a “takeover”, inciting — deliberately, it must be assumed — great, misplaced angst among rural volunteers. The provision in the EBA for meaningful consultation with career firefighters on matters that directly affect them has been misportrayed as an attempt to control the entire CFA, including rural brigades that are unlikely ever encounter career firefighters. Worse, the provision of adequate staffing levels in those urban areas that are already staffed has been grossly misrepresented as meaning that volunteers (everywhere) will have to wait for seven paid staff to arrive before tackling any fire. It has even been suggested that volunteers will be replaced by staff (statewide), that volunteers will be forced to join the UFU, and that firefighters will need to consult with the UFU in the middle of firefighting operations:
Of course, all of these absurd claims are untrue, but they have not been adequately refuted by the media, and have been taken seriously by many people. The cartoon above was tabled at a hearing of the Senate Inquiry by a volunteer who spoke out against the EBA.
The mass panic these lies have inspired has caused vast damage to the morale of career firefighters and volunteers alike, and a return to the level of dissension that marred the Melbourne fire brigades in the 1880s and precipitated decisive government intervention. So damaging was this irresponsible propaganda and such was the level of unrest it was causing that even the President of the coalition-aligned Victorian Farmers’ Federation spoke at one point to quell the false outrage the coalition had inflamed among rural volunteers:
There are 1200 stations where the EBA doesn’t make any difference to volunteers. It is only integrated stations where it have an impact.
Nevertheless, the hyperbolic fear of a statewide takeover, the specific lie around seven-firefighter dispatch, and a range of other tall tales have stuck. Just as in the 1940s, at least one rural brigade has responded with threats to disaffiliate from the CFA — notwithstanding the fact that the EBA would not affect them, and the CFA Act prohibits the operation of unregistered brigades.
In fact, whilst 1880s-style urban volunteer pride underpins VFBV’s position, many Senate Inquiry submissions follow the coalition-manufactured 1940s-style panic over a supposed hostile takeover in which, somehow, the city-based union (which incidentally represents 97% of career firefighters and has their near-unanimous support regarding this EBA) would control rural volunteers. For example:
- Roma Brittney MP (Liberal Party) reports that “CFA volunteers are going to resign and buy their own firefighting equipment”
- David Jarratt suggests “there will be a mass exit of a number of Volunteers, along with this the remainder of the Volunteers will refuse to respond to all Victorians and interstate, they will stay in their own area and look after their local community”
- Grant Howell complains of rural brigades having “a decision process taken from them and put into the hands of a power hungry union who’s interests may not serve the local community to the same degree as what can be decided locally”
- Bryan Pickthall complains that “volunteers should not be controlled in any way by any union”
- Craig Allen asks the Senate to “do all you can to stop the money Hungary unions from taking over the CFA”
- Kerry Clayton says “i am appalled at the thought of a union controlled CFA … I do not want a Bully Boy union official anywhere near my fire ground regardless of his Metropolitan Structual qualifications. Let us just fight the fires and leave the CFA alone.”
- John Wilson asks “how does Peter Marshall think we got on without the UFU telling us what we could do and what we couldn’t???”
- Robert Fraser says he is “very concerned that the EBA … requires
the attendance of paid 7 firefighters before firefighting can begin,” and, interestingly, suggests “paying all the firefighters in the metropolitan area and funding that from within the area served by those firemen” - Yellingbo Rural Fire brigade volunteer Lindsay McKenzie says “Newer recruits have stopped coming to the weekly training as they sense that there will be no future for them in a new CFA crippled by this proposed EBA”
- Rural volunteer Judy Clarke says the UFU concerns me. If they decided who is turned out to fires and how many should be on hand. Its a hard call to make from an office desk in the city and not knowing the areas of concern.”
- Bjorn Valsinger says “I work well with the region 12 staff in Seymour but whatever comes from elsewhere seem suspicious!”
- John Ronald Rowe worries there will be “fatalities if we volunteers have to wait for paid firefighters to attend.”
- John McLaren says “The UFU is clearly moving to take over control of our operational protocols. The union’s executive despises our work but it is our own/neighbours’ homes and properties that we have busted a gut to protect. The Premier lives in the city, he doesn’t know what it’s like to see smoke rising in the North on a day of total fire ban.”
- Russell Peucker says “If we are to be dictated to by Union militants it will spell the end of the only fire service we can afford in country Victoria. The CFA was formed and developed by volunteers and if we have to take the fire tankers back to Spring Street and start all over again on a local basis as our fathers did 70 years ago we will do it.”
- Anne Dunn hopes “to God that the UFU will not be in charge as the destruction will be magnified 10 fold while able, capable, well trained and knowledgeable volunteers stand around waiting for paid firefighters to turn up. We are at least an hour away from any paid firefighters.”
- Gary Cheeseman says “We do not need or wish to have a union telling us what we can or can’t do, or what we can or can’t have in the way of equipment.”
- David Coad thinks the EBA confers “inferior or second class status” upon volunteers and resulting in “loss of a couple of new members and a number of older members questioning whether there is any future in being a volunteer in the CFA with the thought being that we disband and just try to protect our own patch with whatever we can cobble together.”
- Ian Smith thinks the EBA posits that “city-centric career firefighters have more experience in fighting major campaign fires.”
- Mary Anne Egan, who notes that the Maindample CFA tin shed is the only building in their rural community, says the when the Government agreed to the EBA, “the rug was pulled out from under us, the stuffing was knocked out of us-literally. We were dazed, hurt and bruised. We were dumbfounded. We were angry. The ensuing anger is deeply felt, is rising and is abiding.”
- Darren Collins believes the EBA will see volunteers “ending up on the puppet strings of the union”
- Leigh Sutton thinks the EBA will place “paid firefighters in small communities alongside volunteers”
- K. L. Williams believes volunteers will be “forced to join a union”
- Heather Stuart says “we do not need to be told what to do by the UFU — or prevented from making our own decisions”
- Colin and Robyn Coates believe “union has already indicated they will control the 60,000 members”
- Melita Cordie asks whether the union would “like to veto the choice of wool colour of 87 year old Aunty Maude’s lovingly made scarves sold to raise local CFA funds”
- Don Bigham (yes, apparently of “What about Don?” fame) interestingly seems to acknowledge that the time has now passed for a “volunteer force ‘supported’ by career staff”, but complains that “we now seem to be dictated to by a militant union that has very little, if any, understanding of the rural environment”
Undoubtedly most or all of these volunteers are dedicated servants of their community, the best interests of which they have at heart. Sadly, all are victims of hysterical politically-motivated coalition propaganda that taps into 1940s-era urban-vs-rural turf war sensitivities, by falsely suggesting that an EBA designed to protect firefighter sand community safety in urban areas will impact upon their work in rural areas.
The reality is, these reforms need to happen, in the interests of firefighter safety and community safety in urban areas. They have nothing to do with the rural CFA. The 1880s turf warriors need to understand that safety is more important than pride, and the 1940s turf warriors need to realise they’ve been duped by Liberal and National Party propaganda, ably supported by a compliant media. That good people have been whipped into such a level of emotional anguish, on the basis of lies, for the sake of party political gain, is simply appalling.
At the end of the day, for the sake of firefighter and public safety, arrangements for firefighting in urban areas need to be reformed. Ideally, the reforms would be implemented by a government prepared to do the right thing in the face of political opportunism. As it happens, it’s left to career firefighters to pursue reform through an industrial instrument.
It behoves those who want to pass judgement on the matter to understand both the reasons behind those reforms, and the historical and cultural context of opposition to fire service reform. That opposition could be overcome with strong leadership, including open critique of the damaging and inflammatory tactics of the Liberal and National Parties that have manufactured a chasm of mistrust. But failing that, less preferably, the reactionary opposition to reform could be diminished with the security of distance found in the 1891 solution: separation of the paid and volunteer firefighting services.
Perhaps only then will career firefighters’ efforts to improve firefighter safety and community safety be recognised as just that, and not miscast as an attack on volunteers.
Unless otherwise noted, the historical information related in this story derives from the following two books: State of Fire: A History of Volunteer Firefighting and the Country Fire Authority in Victoria (Robert Murray and Kate White, Hartgreen Publishing Company, 1995) and Life Under the Bells: A History of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, Melbourne 1891–1991 (Sally Wilde, Longman Cheshire, 1991).
