There will be an almighty effort at damage control over the coming days to help the State Government douse the metaphoric wildfire the CFA/ UFU industrial agreement has become. 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 Chewton, Redesdale, Elmore or Heathcote. Because it is in these localities and many more, where members of the CFA will gather in the weeks to come in their well-loved, well-worn sheds to discuss just how this will affect them.
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The Bendigo Advertiser has maintained the fundamentals of this dispute were about safety: does the agreement make for safer work conditions and procedures for both volunteer and professional firefighters and by extension the communities they protect? In this war of rhetoric consecutive salvoes of misinformation have meant the general public is almost no more illuminated about this basic principal than when the ugly dispute began. The singular failure of the government to show any leadership on this vital point and elucidate what it means for the key groups and the general public must go down as one of the communication’s failures of the year.
And out of this has grown the wider and far more bloody cultural war between a militant union and a volunteer force. But the outcome of this conflict is all the more important because that volunteer force is built on good will. 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 good will. Loyalty and passion and morale cannot flourish long under such circumstances.
Even with the ink dry on this most pyrrhic of victories for the Andrew’s 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.
