On Friday this week, the Premier Daniel Andrews and Minister James Merlino announced splitting the CFA, separating paid operational employees and volunteers into different organisations though major structural reform of Victoria’s Fire Services. This note outlines what VFBV know so far, about the proposal.
From what has been reported, these reforms have been drawn up by a small group working in secret within the
Department of Premier & Cabinet, and has not involved the Fire Agencies. This group and their work has also reportedly been hidden from Cabinet itself. This would be the first time in Victoria’s history, that Fire Service Reform has not been the subject of any public scrutiny or consultation.
As a sign of Government’s desire to push through these changes before any detail is known, before any expert analysis/impact statements and before any public scrutiny, Minister
Merlino has advised his plan is to introduce this legislation to Parliament next week.
VFBV’s understanding of the structural reforms based on the Premier and Ministers public comment and our discussions with Minister Merlino in a afternoon briefing last Friday after the public announcement, suggest that;
- All current 35 CFA Integrated brigade response area’s will be removed from the CFA, and redefined to become FRV first response areas.
- Current integrated brigades will be split into two separate Brigades – a paid firefighter FRV Brigade and a separate CFA Volunteer Brigade, “co-located” in the existing CFA facility. Each agency will own its own assets and equipment, including
vehicles.
- The Government will remove the need for Local Councils to request changes to boundaries, and will instead establish an “Independent” Fire District Review Panel that will undertake periodic reviews, to determine any future changes to areas covered by FRV and CFA.
MINISTER MERLINO STATEMENTS ABOUT CONSULTATION WITH VFBV ARE UNTRUE
It is important to understand that none of these reforms have been the
subject of consultation with VFBV. The Minister’s comments that we have been consulted, are false and misleading.
Despite rumours about the proposed split, circulating for some weeks now, there has been no consultation with VFBV and no briefing of any detail whatsoever.
Following news reports overnight on Thursday 18th May that Cabinet had met and approved reforms, VFBV CEO Andrew Ford requested an urgent meeting with the Minister. The
Premier and Minister held their press conference at 10am on Friday 19th May and the Minister met with VFBV later that day at 12:45 and provided a briefing covering the publically released information pack. VFBV raised a number of questions that were not able to be answered and the Minister took these questions on notice.
The only other discussion on this issue was on Monday 8th May 2017 when the Minister informed VFBV he was considering “several
options” to change the CFA arrangements because the proposed EBA agreed with the UFU would not pass the volunteer protection amendments to the Fair Work Act. VFBV expressed disappointment with this being the motivation of proposed reform let alone being factually incorrect. The Minister did not provide any detail, nor discuss any options he was considering, and would not be drawn on any detail other than to say an announcement of changes was “imminent.” It is simply inconceivable that just 10
days prior to cabinet approving the reforms that the Minister was not in a position to discuss particular ideas or options and seek volunteer feedback.
A letter from CFA CEO received late afternoon on Friday 19th May 2016 confirmed that significant reforms had been announced by the government. There has been no opportunity for consultation with CFA prior to this because up until late Thursday advice from CFA to VFBV was that there was no information known.
Minister Merlino confirmed that even CFA Chief Officer Steve Warrington had not been involved in the discussions until two or three days prior to the announcement, despite the Chief Officer being on annual leave.
Apart from raising serious failure to consult with CFA volunteers in accordance with the CFA Act and Volunteer Charter it beggars belief that such major reform could be contemplated for CFA without detailed assessment and advice about operational impacts,
volunteer capacity impacts, cost impacts and future service delivery implications.
Even the Emergency Management Commissioner only recently stated, under oath, that there was no work that he had done towards the new model and that he was not doing any work on changing the CFA service model or boundaries or changes between CFA and MFB.
EIGHT PREVIOUS FIRE SERVICE REVIEWS QUOTED BY GOVERNMENT
The
Premier and Minister has inferred that their proposed structural reform has been recommended by previous reviews and they list; 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission; 2011 Jones Inquiry; 2015 Fire Services Review, 2014/15 Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry and the 2015/16 Parliamentary Inquiry into CFA Training College Fiskville.
To be very clear, none of the recent major reviews have ever recommended that the CFA be split into a fully staffed service, and a 100% volunteer
service. To suggest or imply otherwise is dishonest.
In fact, the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission specifically stated in its final report that it considered the CFA integrated service delivery should be maintained as a viable model.
In the Andrews Government’s own Fire Services Review conducted just recently, the Final Report actually calls for the strengthening of CFA’s integrated model to preserve the vital
surge capacity of volunteers.
WHAT DO WE KNOW SO FAR
We have more questions than answers at this point.
The Minister has committed to providing answers to our questions as soon as practicable. He has also invited VFBV to meet with himself, Craig Lapsley and Steve Warrington so they can answer the Operational impacts. We are trying to secure that meeting as soon as possible and have requested that these
discussions occur before final decisions are made on the proposed changes and particularly before any legislation change.
The following is a brief list of things we have specifically been able to work out based on the Premier & Ministers media commentary, our discussion with the Minister on Friday afternoon, and the Governments Fire Services website . We are forming an understanding on the following:
- The Government have already drafted
Legislation and are planning to introduce it into Parliament this week. This will include amendments to the CFA Act. We have not seen either of these, and have asked for them.
- It appears that all CFA operational career firefighters (ranks from Recruit through to Senior Station Officer), all Operations Officers, all Operations Managers, all Regional Commanders will be transferred to FRV.
- The Minister was unclear about other classifications covered by the UFU such
as Instructors, PAD Staff and Supervisors, Managers Community Safety and Communications staff. However, as all these classifications of employees are covered by the UFU and are referred to in the proposed EBA as “operational” we assume these positions are also likely to be transferred. It is unclear what will occur with the District Mechanical Officers who are also covered by the UFU but are under a separate EB.
- The Minister has confirmed there will be $5 million to meet the
additional cost of FRV’s rebranding (which we assume to be Stations, Trucks, PPC and Uniforms.)
- While the OO’s (Operation Officers) and OM’s (Operational Managers) will be transferred to FRV, they will then be “seconded” or contracted back to work in CFA in their existing roles.
This would mean that OM’s and OO’s would be FRV employees, likely working under their FRV EBA – but then seconded back to CFA under a contract to be drawn up between CFA and FRV. In effect, these
employees of FRV would be contracted to provide all of CFA’s operational management and volunteer brigade operational leadership support.
- The Minister has confirmed to VFBV that BASO’s and Volunteer Support Officers will not be transferred to FRV, and will remain with CFA as they do currently.
- The Minister expects that appliances crewed by staff in integrated stations will be removed from CFA and transferred to FRV. It is unclear which specific
appliances but as the Premier and Minister have both said FRV’s EB is likely to be very close to what the UFU proposed EB is, it is conceivable that FRV will use appliance based manning, so staff will be rostered to specific appliances, and those appliances will then be transferred to FRV, with the remaining left for CFA.
- It is unclear what will occur with the savings and assets currently owned by the CFA Integrated brigades
- Whilst the Minister has confirmed that
there will be no current changes to the operational procedures of the first arriving agency appointing the Incident Controller – it is unclear what will happen if the new FRV EBA includes similar provisions to the proposed CFA EBA which did not allow staff to report to volunteers acting as Sector Commanders and Strike Team Leaders for example. Based on the Governments website it appears that the new FRV Commissioner may be provided additional powers to determine these arrangements in the
future. It is not known what powers the CFA Chief Officer will have in relation to the amended CFA Act, the new FRV Act and/or any EBA terms negotiated by FRV.
GOVERNMENTS MOTIVATION BEHIND THIS CHANGE
Despite the spin about this change being to establish a modern and progressive fire service the Governments own acknowledgement is that the motivation for this change is to enable their industrial
deal with the UFU to circumvent the CFA Act and Fair Work Act.
Problems with the UFU proposed EBA for CFA operational personnel are well documented, particularly the restrictions on CFA operational and resource decisions and on the way volunteers are deployed, equipped, supported, valued and respected.
To recap in simplest terms, the proposed EBA reached far beyond normal EBA matters of pay and conditions and was seeking to use federal
industrial legislation (the Fair Work Act) to override the CFA Act on a number of matters including CFA Chief Officers statutory powers and issues core to CFA operating as a volunteer based and fully integrated modern fire service. The Fair Work Act was amended in late 2016, closing the loophole that the UFU EBA had been seeking to use.
The Fair Work Act amendment has no impact on normal EBA matters and only applies to aspects such as EBA clauses that
restrict or limit a body such as CFA engaging or deploying it volunteers; providing support or equipment to those volunteers; managing its operations in relation to those volunteers. Importantly the Fair Work Act amendments simply require that the EBA does not require or permit a body to do something other than in accordance with the powers, functions and duties set down in the CFA Act. In essence it stops Federal legislation being used to circumvent State legislation, such as
the CFA Act.
Despite the UFU, Premier Daniel Andrews and Minister James Merlino repeatedly claiming that the proposed EBA has no impact on CFA volunteers, they now say that the impact on volunteers are so big that the EBA would not pass the above test. And because they are unwilling to put the EBA to the Fair Work Commissions, ‘fair umpire’ test, they will carve CFA up to get around it.
The Governments proposal is cunning and looks simple, albeit flawed – separate the paid staff out into a new organisation and claim that because that organisation doesn’t have volunteers in it, the EBA isn’t subject to the Fair Work Act tests about restricting or limiting what volunteers do, how they are supported etc – then keep the firefighters separate and contract the operational staff back into CFA under the problematic EBA
conditions.
The plan is a sham. It is not about public safety. If it were not a trick, then the Government would not be trying to make these reforms without any public scrutiny or consultation.
And the sham isn’t limited to CFA. It should not be lost on people that the MFB EBA is still in dispute and has been since 2013, with the MFB Board and Management refusing to approve their proposed EBA because of their fears about the
impacts on public safety and the loss of power and control of their Chief Officer. Changing the MFB to FRV, and removing the MFB Board, MFB CEO and MFB Chief Officer means they can remove the last of the statutory appointed officials who are refusing to sign aspects of an EBA that diminish their statutory control and legislative responsibilities.
Furthermore claims that the proposition that the volunteer protection provisions of the Fair Work Act make it “impossible to
implement the operational enterprise agreement at CFA or any agreement for operational staff” are dishonest. The UFU have refused to allow their proposed EBA be sent to the Fair Work Umpire for Fair Work to even make a determination. The Federal Minister of Employment (the person administering the law) released a Statement on Friday evening advising that the Victorian Government’s statement that the amended laws prevented a new enterprise agreement being entered into with paid CFA staff is
“absolutely false” and using this claim to justify a plan to dismantle CFA, is “based on a deliberate and blatant falsehood.”
OPPORTUNITY TO UNDERSTAND DETAIL AND IMPACT IS ESSENTIAL PRIOR TO ANY DECISION
The scant detail that VFBV does have has been outlined above. Clearly there are many more questions than answers. VFBV has been inundated with volunteer concerns about the lack of detail and many are assuming this
detail will be provided before any final decision is made.
Please do not be fooled by the lack of detail, it is either an intentional move to gloss over the obvious serious and detrimental impact this change will have; or perhaps, and just as alarming, the detail is not known and the impact analysis, practical implementation challenges, cost impact, etc has not been adequately done.
For any change of this magnitude, there
must be due process of review and impact assessment before decisions are made and certainly before legislation is passed.
WHAT HAS VFBV ASKED FOR?
VFBV has requested the Minister:
- Not proceed with legislation or implementation until there is volunteer and community consultation prior to decisions being made, as is the legal obligation under the CFA Act
- Full details
of the proposed changes, including answers to detailed operational questions and a full operational impact assessment of changes before a decision is made
- A full volunteer impact assessment of the proposed changes before a decision is made
- For the draft legislation and amendments to be provided to volunteers for consultation prior to it being considered by Parliament
Further, VFBV has communicated directly to the
Minister:
- Its disappointment that the Government has again failed to respect the Volunteer Charter and its Statutory Obligations under the CFA Act
- The CFA Act places a Statutory legal obligation on both Government and CFA to meaningfully consult with volunteers, allowing enough time for real involvement on all matters which may impact upon them before the adoption or implementation of any new or changed
policies, procedures or approaches
- That the Premier and Minister’s media messaging suggesting that volunteers are not capable of delivering fire and rescue services in urban areas is deeply offensive
- That the Ministers statement on Neil Mitchell’s 3AW on Friday morning where he stated “Well, I would say to you that in a high population, high density areas, the community deserves 24/7 career station delivering urban fire services” ignores the fact that volunteers
do and can provide professional services in urban areas and is deeply offensive
- That the reforms outlined, and the way this is being done will have a significant and negative impact and will lead to reduced volunteer capability and decreased public safety
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?
Volunteers should not sit and wait for the detail given that the Government plan to push the legislation through before they release the
detail.
VFBV has already raised a number of vitally important impact, implementation and governance questions with Minister Merlino and we are waiting on the answers to these. We have set down to the Minister our expectation that consultation obligations will be met prior to a decision and prior to legislation being put to parliament.
Volunteers should contact your local MPs and demand that this occur prior to a
decision.
You need to be contacting your local MPs immediately, requesting, as a minimum that legislation not be considered before there is formal process of inquiry regarding its impact plus opportunity for volunteer consultation.
NEXT STEPS
- VFBV will continue to try and source details and communicate them to you
- Once the detail is known, we will work with members to allow
volunteers to provide feedback. Particular emphasis will be to work with each Integrated Brigade to ensure their specific concerns and questions are addressed
- VFBV will continue to brief MP’s and other decision makers.
- We need you to assist by contacting your local MP with your questions and concerns and requesting they do not vote for any legislation before due process and opportunity for a more open inquiry into the changes
proposed.
Victoria deserves a community and public safety driven solution to the current dispute, not a political one. VFBV is committed to providing a way forward to the current tension and always has been.
Since our first letters to the Fair Work Commission, Premier Andrews, Minister Merlino, and CFA Board/Management when this issue started all we have sought is for an opportunity for constructive, transparent and fair conversation with an
opportunity for volunteers to have input.
We believe all firefighters, paid and volunteer alike, deserve respect and recognition for the work they do and the skills they have. We have always maintained that the pay and conditions of paid firefighters is their business. The pay and condition aspects of their EBA has already been agreed and implemented, and the EBA issues should be separated from how we design the best fire service arrangements for
Victoria.
It is time for the dispute to end but putting a bad solution on the table is not the answer. VFBV will continue to urge the Government to stop, take a breath and work with us constructively and in consultation with our people delivering the services on the ground to find a model that will modernise Victoria’s fire and emergency services, not take it backward.
The Emergency Management Commissioner’s vision is “we work as one”. Further
splitting the fire services is not the answer.
VFBV welcomes any reforms that improve the way Victorian Fire Services work but these reforms need to be developed collaboratively and openly.
Extensive evidence to the Bushfires Royal Commission gave a stark warning on this issue. Professor ‘t Hart warned:
“Redesigning emergency management systems or organisations often happens as a
result of the sheer momentum for change created by the occurrence of a recent high impact tragedy. Unfortunately there is plenty of research to suggest that crisis induced reforms may create as many vulnerabilities as they seek to eliminate – particularly when they are too narrowly focussed on “wining the most recent war”.
