Posted on 06/09/2016 6:43:04 PM PDT by naturalman1975
Like tens of thousands of other Australians, I am a volunteer firefighter - bush fire is a constant threat in Australia, especially during the summer months, and the nation's sheer size and relatively low population means volunteer fire fighters are critical to public safety - the professionals do a fine job in the big cities but on the edges of those cities and out of them, it's the volunteers that are most critical.
As a Victorian, I am a volunteer with the CFA - the Country Fire Authority - which has about 60,000 volunteers and about 1,000 professional employed firefighters (we also have the entirely professional Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) serving central Melbourne).
The professional firefighters have been involved in a long running dispute over pay and conditions with the previous and current governments of Victoria. Now, the socialist Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews and his socialist government are attempting to ram through a 'pay deal' that would hand over control of the CFA to their union mates in the United Firefighters Union of Australia (UFU). Provisions of this deal would cause immense damage to volunteer firefighting and would endanger lives - one example of this is a requirement that seven professional firefighters would need to be on a fireground before any professional firefighters would begin fighting the fires - this means that volunteer firefighters could potentially be fighting fires and putting their lives at risk, while the professionals have to stand around and just watch us doing it, because there aren't seven of them there yet. In many places, in the past, it's been the practice to team groups of inexperienced volunteers under the leadership of one or two experienced professionals during a sudden emergency - that will no longer be permitted. There's a lot more going on than just this issue - but the bottom line, this is a deal that is bad for everyone - except the Union. And the reason the Union looks like getting what it wants is because we have a Socialist government in union pockets.
Throughout the latter part of this dispute, the Minister for Emergency Services, Jan Garrett, the state Member of Parliament for Brunswick, has been fiercely fighting to protect the volunteers of the CFA from this deal over the obections of her Premier and her Cabinet colleagues. Last week, she said that if this deal proceeded, she would resign from office - sacrificing her career for a matter of principle - today, she has tendered that resignation.
The Premier is going to force this deal through. He's probably going to have the entire CFA Board - which has also rejected the deal - sacked and replaced - but as somebody who rails against socialist politicians and others who seem to regard their career as more important than doing right, I felt the need to write something somewhere, acknowledging Jan Garrett and her stand.
If I lived in Brunswick, I might even find myself voting for a socialist at our next state election.
Don’t really know much about politics there is Australia, but good luck on getting this proposal stopped...It does sound like something the freaking liberals here would do....
Are these people insane? I had no idea the unions in Australia were similar to the ones in the US.
Thank you for being a first responder, and WATCH YOUR BACK!
Well hell then, It have to be Costa Rica if the Hillary
bitch gets elected
Jan Garrett is one of those rare people in public life with character and integrity.
She could have sold out volunteer firefighters to advance her career but decided to give up her office over a deal that shafted them.
For me, that’s more important than her politics. If you don’t have the courage of your convictions, nothing else matters.
Did that sacrifice include never running for any other office? I don’t know about your politicians, but here in the states, ours are corrupt to the bone and ya can’t believe a word coming out of their mouths.
That’s what I thought. Seems Australia is attempting to compete with the USA in the stupidity department.
Socialists have no morals.
So basically Andrews and his stooges do not give a damn about folks
in the countryside since they are urban rodents.
My unlearned opinion of Victoria is a California with less people. Too bad you can’t split the state up and escape from the Melbourne metroplois.
The unions in Australia are worse than ours, overtly Marxist. The older leadership are or were “Pommy Bastard” transplants from the UK, who carried with them all the class warfare ideology that nearly killed Britain in the 70’s.
Although you never can tell when speaking of union bosses.
Australia sounds like Allegheny County.
Republicans in elected positions of authority are as rare as the Dodo. Hence you have to rely on the least-insane Democrat you can find to get an issue addressed.
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