There will be an almighty effort at damage control to help the State Government douse the metaphoric wildfire that the CFA/ UFU industrial agreement has become.
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After a week of public relations disasters, the government has decided to strong-arm its way through the crisis, delivering an ultimatum to the CFA board and forcing the resignation of minister Jane Garrett. The machinations and posturing, the sound-bite outrage and snide triumphalism of Spring Street matter little in Kirkstall, Narrawong or Hawkesdale. Because it is in these towns, and many more, where CFA members will gather in the weeks to come to discuss just how this will affect them.
Volunteers marched down Warrnambool’s Liebig Street to Cannon Hill on Friday. There was significant support against the proposed pay deal for professional firefighters which they fear will erode their roles. The UFU and professional firies maintain volunteers are critical.
The rally was meant to be about sticking up for volunteers but the cynics will argue it was political opportunism by the Liberal Party. That about 100 people turned up in wintry conditions – and, just hours earlier, a senior minister had fallen on her sword refusing to push the deal through – validated the event.
The single failure of the government to show leadership and elucidate what the deal means for key groups and the public must go down as one of the communication fails of the year. And out of this has grown the wider and far more bloody cultural war between a union and a volunteer force.
But the outcome of this conflict is all the more important because that volunteer force is built on goodwill. The sacrifice of personal time and effort for an unpaid public service is all the more valuable because it offers otherwise unaffordable protection. The very motivation for all this comes from a love of the service and love of the organisation. The deal may yet be signed but without a judicious and clearly justified implementation, there is the lingering risk that rancour will poison this goodwill.
Even with the ink dry on this most pyrrhic of victories for the Andrews Government, it will have a far bigger task at hand. With demonstrable argument and facts, it must convince these volunteers and the communities they serve that they are better off under this agreement. For that is what 60,000 ordinary men and women will be talking about from now on.
