Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I cannot even hear you. You have to do better than that if you are going to intervene!

The ineffective and dangerous response by the previous board to the Fiskville contamination issue placed career and volunteer firefighters in an unsafe, contaminated working environment. This is a board who knew there was contamination at Fiskville but kept sending workers back to Fiskville. No wonder that those career firefighters are saying, 'We don't trust that board'—the previous board—'to deal with the issues effectively'. There was clearly a conspiracy by the previous CEO and the board to adopt a union-busting strategy, prepared by the Chicago based union-busting outfit called Seyfarth Shaw. They were in discussions with a union-busting Chicago based organisation to try and get rid of the UFU, to try and stop career firefighters having access to advice, having access to support, from their union.

These are the issues that underpin where we are at the moment. And you will hear lots from the other side about how terrible it is that the volunteers are being sidelined. There was absolutely no evidence that the clauses in the agreement would affect the volunteer firefighters. I can understand the volunteer firefighters' leadership raising the issues, because most things these days are about power and control. The volunteer firefighters union—basically—want power and control. There is no doubt about that. That conspiracy was about destroying effective trade unionism in the CFA.

I did not find the evidence from the former CEO, Ms Nolan, to be credible, especially her memory lapse on issues associated with the retention of a Chicago based union-busting legal firm to provide strategic advice. She knew everything else. She remembered everything. But she could not remember who told her to get the union-busting outfit in. She could not tell us whether it was one person or a dozen persons. She could not tell us anything about it. A memory lapse about something so important just does not add up and it makes the rest of her evidence not credible.

So I take the view that the expert evidence that we had from Professor Stewart—the legal evidence we have had from a number of a prominent legal practitioners—will say that this bill will be challenged all the way. This bill will be challenged in the Supreme Court of Victoria. It would be challenged in the High Court. It would be challenged on constitutional grounds. This is a bill that is brought here for political purposes. It is not about looking after volunteer firefighters. It is not about looking after the Victorian community. We should reject this bill.