Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Respect for Emergency Services Volunteers) Bill 2016 today. My comments should be viewed in light of the fact that I have been an emergency service volunteer and I understand the very unique issues faced by volunteers. The government's timing on this issue and the introduction of the legislation is a bit concerning. Why the rush? There is a Supreme Court action pending in Victoria, where legal ruling on the issues that this legislation is apparently dealing with will be handed down in a few weeks. Again, why the rush? Why not use the outcome of the independent umpire, the court, to inform the legislative process? We might find that federal intervention is not required. It says a lot about the nature of this government.

Over the last few months this government has made unnecessary intrusion into Victorian politics. They shamelessly targeted the most valued and trusted people in our communities—our firefighting forces—and engaged in a long-running industrial relations dispute in the hope of winning a few votes at the federal election. In a cynical and desperate attempt, the government made an election commitment to, as the government puts it, prevent a union takeover of the CFA. This rushed, poorly-drafted bill is the result.

Last week in question time the Prime Minister said that he wanted to ensure that volunteers could not be made subordinate to the UFU. Nothing can be further from the truth. This bill has nothing to do with respect for emergency service volunteers. Despite the title, it is about union crucifixion. The Prime Minister spoke about standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the CFA 'in the face of an assault' by the Andrews government. The only thing that this government has achieved with this bill is splitting firefighting forces right down the middle, pitting them against each other. Why? Because there is a union involved and, when it comes to unions, they just cannot help themselves. The division being fuelled by the Liberals led to a letter from one of my CFA brigade captains. He says:

Exactly when will it have gone far enough?

Will it be when a career fire fighter's wife or husband or child are reduced to tears in a country community because of the abuse hurled from some 'well informed source'?

Will it be when career fire fighters and volunteers, previously lifetime friends, come to blows on one of our trucks or in our stations?

Will it be when someone is more seriously injured by themselves or others due to the urging of those who think of this as simply another industrial stoush?

That's what I would like to know. When will it be enough?'

That is why this government refuses to talk about the bill—because it is not about protecting volunteer firefighters; it is about the demonisation of unions.

This is a backdoor approach by this government to undermine the union movement through proposed changes to the Fair Work Act. But do they actually know what they are changing? Certainly, Minister Cash does not. The minister is clearly clueless on this issue. Time and time again she has stated one thing only to have the facts proved the opposite. She claimed there are specific clauses in the CFA's EBA that will end volunteering as we know it. She cannot name them and she cannot show them to anyone, but they are there somewhere—surely, surely they are there! Channelling her inner Dennis Denuto from the film The Castle on that now-famous train wreck of an interview with David Speers, she basically said, to quote Dennis Denuto: It's Mabo, it's the Constitution, it's the vibe and—no, that's it; it's just the vibe.'

She claims there is no one specific clause in the agreement that is a problem—it will just make volunteers leave in droves. When asked how it would make them leave she cannot answer, because every concern that has been raised is being addressed or has been addressed. She takes claims by a sacked CFA board member about the EBA at face value without checking the facts. I have spoken to every single CFA captain in my electorate, and this is what is being said about those claims from the former board member:

There is absolutely no excuse for him to continue to repeat redundant clauses of a past draft of the CFA EBA. His comments are factually incorrect, ignorant, and can only incite further fear and division in the CFA ranks.

Every time the minister or the government come up with a new lie about this EBA there is someone there who shows it up. Even the chief fire officer of the CFA himself has come out and said that the EBA will not affect his ability to deploy his volunteers or to give them the training and resources they need. This is the chief fire officer of the CFA, not Liberals who have never volunteered in their lives. When pushed, Senator Cash could not even state how fighting the EBA is standing up for the volunteers. 'Sixty thousand volunteers can't be wrong', she said. But they can be deceived when they have been fed misinformation from this government, whose sole purpose is not protect volunteers, not to fight for our communities but, once again, to use them as unwitting pawns in a fight against unionism for no reason other than that they are a union. The government do it for political gain.

The government is genuinely dishonest to our firefighters. It is not right, it is not fair and it is not the first time. You just need to look at the rushed drafting of this bill itself. The majority of the bill appears, at first glance, to duplicate the existing definitions and provisions of section 109 of the Fair Work Act. Section 109 of the Fair Work Act defines a 'recognised emergency management body' and a 'voluntary emergency management activity'. It also provides for Fair Work regulations to prescribe an activity that would meet the definitions in section 109 and be ultimately included in the scope of the FWA. At first glance you would think this section is sufficient to cover emergency services volunteers, but the new section 195A proposed in this bill provides definitions for a 'designated emergency management body' and 'volunteer of a designated emergency management body'. That is essentially a duplicate of the existing definitions in section 109. So why would you need to put these new definitions in? That made me look at it again.

If this bill goes ahead, section 195A would require an organisation to meet two definitions—one under subsection 109(3) and subsection 195A(4)(b). Essentially, if you can meet one you meet the other. So it is a little redundant in my opinion. Why the two definitions, when one would do? Then we found it. The devil is in the detail, and this one carries a pretty hefty pitchfork. The kicker is hiding in plain sight in subsection 195A(5), with a brief explanation in paragraph 25 of the explanatory memorandum. The Fair Work Regulations may prescribe that an organisation is not a designated emergency management body for the purposes of subsection 195A(5). This relates to the definition in subsection 195A(4).

In all that technical talk, the subsection gives this government the capacity to decide on a whim, through the regulations, which emergency management organisation is in or out of scope of the Fair Work Act. You might meet one definition but find that you do not meet another. The lack of clarity and consultation on the bill, the uncertainty that it causes for those in career and volunteer firefighting communities, and the fact that there is an ongoing court case, should be enough for my colleagues on the other side to consider shelving it. But instead, they are trying to ram it through. They will argue that any opposition to the bill shows that Labor is not cooperating, that we are not being bipartisan. If this government says one thing to the community it will do something else in this legislation. Of course we are going to stand up and say something. It is not going to get a free ride. It will be held to account. In our state we have a long and proud history of cooperation.

Spring is coming, and with it comes a very early fire season—a fire season that our community knows too well. We have been at the epicentre of just about every major fire in Victoria in the last decade. Sixty per cent of the electorate has been burnt out. It is time the government pulled its head it. Let the courts and the independent umpire, the Fair Work Commission, do their job and let the CFA do theirs: protecting the property and lives of people in our community. Volunteers and career firefighters represent two sides of a priceless coin. I will not stand there and let the coalition split them down the middle purely for their selfish political gain.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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