The former chairman of the Country Fire Authority of Victoria said he felt coerced when he was asked to sign a controversial industrial agreement and that former emergency services minister Jane Garrett would have been “horrified” if the CFA had accepted the agreement.
John Peberdy was acting chairman of the CFA Board until June, when he and the rest of the board were sacked for failing to support an enterprise bargaining agreement he says would have given the United Firefighters Union an unworkable level of power over the largely volunteer-based fire-fighting agency.
He told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into bushfire preparedness that he and other board members were given six hours to sign the deal by the deputy premier, James Merlino, after Garrett resigned, despite previously expressing strong reservations about the deal.
“He told me that the board had to make a decision today – he was now asking us to sign the EBA – and that by 5pm that day he wanted to know if we had signed it and if not, why not,” Peberdy told Guardian Australia.
“To me, that was coercion.”
Garrett had opposed the deal in defiance of the premier, Daniel Andrews, and resigned as minister before a cabinet meeting on 10 June. By 11am that day, Peberdy said, the new minister, Merlino, had called him and asked him to sign.
“We were given hours, basically, to make that important decision,” Peberdy said. “The threat was, you would be sacked if you didn’t sign it. I will sack you.”
Peberdy said he was disappointed by the government’s decision, and that he continued to believe some clauses in the agreement, such as the power of the union to veto decisions of the chief fire officer by taking them to the Fair Work Commission, were “counter-productive to fire management”.
“We need to consider where the Andrews government is coming from,” he said. “It is a very heavily union-backed government. But we were surprised that the premier did not back his minister.
“At the time we were the board, our minister would have been horrified if we had signed the agreement.”
The board, including Peberdy, was sacked that evening. Andrews had said earlier that day that support for the deal was “unanimous”, with the exception of Garrett.
The chief executive, Lucinda Nolan, resigned a week later, and chief fire officer Joe Buffone followed.
Peberdy would not comment on whether the agreement would compromise firefighting at the CFA, except to say, “I wouldn’t think for any organisation it would be good to lose your minister, your CEO, your chief officer, your board.”
The new chief fire officer, Steve Warrington, and new chief executive, Frances Driver, also appeared before the parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday.
Warrington, who as deputy fire officer signed a joint statement with 13 other senior managers opposing the EBA, told the inquiry the only clause that still concerned him related to rostering, but that “a lot of the detail is being worked out”.
“The EBA is still being negotiated, it has not been signed off and discussion about it is just speculative,” he said.
Warrington said the public fight over the agreement had damaged morale at the firefighting agency but that they were ready to go if there was a bushfire.
“Most of our people have had a gutful about all this and just want to get on with the job,” he said.
The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, campaigned against the proposed EBA and promised to pass laws to protect volunteers from being impacted by union negotiations as his first act when parliament resumes on 30 August.
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