I am yearning for the day that I write this column celebrating an observation that things might have turned a corner and that current Victorian Government has finally seen the light and re-thought its flawed plan to carve up CFA. Unfortunately, I still cannot report this as being the case.

Over the past months I have had two major themes of questioning about where things are at and where they are headed regarding the current Victorian State Governments fire service restructure and CFA carve up plans.

On the one hand I have had many optimistic (and unfortunately misguided) queries or should I say hopes asking whether the silence in the media and other forums means that the Government’s Fire Service reform agenda – the CFA carve up – has been defeated once and for all by the decision in the Victorian Parliament Upper House a few months ago. And on the other hand I have had many volunteers, members of the community and friends of CFA asking what they can do, what more VFBV can do, to ensure the Victorian Government puts aside its flawed CFA carve up agenda and starts a more constructive, transparent and genuine agenda to talk about what we can all do to ensure Victoria’s fire services meet the needs of tomorrow.

So to start somewhere simple lets clear up one sad reality. The Government’s push to carve up the CFA is not over. The Premier has publicly stated that his Government remains committed to its CFA restructure agenda and that they will continue to pursue whatever avenue they can to see the legislation get through.

So unless we and the community can change the Government’s mind, the risk of this legislation and its negative consequence is a very real and continuing issue. If this Government can somehow get the numbers to push the legislation through before the next state election in November then the indication is they will do so and one can assume that if a Labor state government is elected in Victoria at the November State election, their push to carve up the CFA will continue.

So this leads to the next most common question. What can people do about it?

I know we have discussed this before and I know many of us are well and truly sick of it but the reality is that we all need to keep our voice up and we need to redouble our efforts to explain our concerns and to expose the flawed motivation behind the Victorian Governments proposed changes to CFA.

I, along with a huge number of very experienced CFA volunteers, am firmly of the view that if this Governments policy gets up and the carve up of CFA goes ahead it will be the end of CFA as we know it. There is plenty documented on VFBV website about the flaws in both the motivation behind the Government’s reform and the flaws in what they are proposing. And the community is now pretty well enlivened to the dirty deals and game playing that seems to be sitting behind the proposed changes.

What they are less aware of is the fact that the proposed changes will provide no additional service capacity or service flexibility to meet urban growth demands than what exists today; they are not aware that the changes will actually further erode the CFA Chief Officer’ ability to manage his or her statutory responsibilities and will pave the way for even more political and industrial interference in the way CFA operates; that all CFA operational personnel, including all operational personnel who currently support brigades throughout regional Victoria as Operations Officers and Operations Managers, will be transferred out of CFA to a new organisation Fire Rescue Victoria and then seconded back to CFA under arrangements that decrease the CFA Chief Officers ability to select, deploy and manage them; that in truth the changes are just designed to find a way to circumvent the laws that seek to ensure EBA's cannot limit how CFA equips, supports, recognises, respects and consults with volunteers.

To be blunt, the Victorian Government’s Fire Service Reform is nothing more than a CFA carve up and it looks to be driven more by caving in to union pressure than anything to do with community safety.

So, getting back to the question about what you can do. Every volunteer can help by actively generating discussion amongst your family, your neighbours, your local community networks, your friends and relatives – explain our concerns to them and explain the potential impact on the future of CFA if the proposed carve up goes ahead. CFA volunteer and community networks are a very expansive and powerful tool, turn on your networks and ask your networks to let your local MPs know about how you feel and what you expect them to do about your concerns.

Take time to share your concerns with everyone you know and ask them to talk to everyone they know. Ask your local MPs whether they will support CFA and what they will do to help stop this legislation, work closely with and support any MP who supports CFA volunteers; work hard to change the minds of any MP who isn’t listening or who needs further convincing and encourage for the conversations to become very public.

CFA volunteers have enormous respect in the community and people are going to listen. But you have to speak up and maintain the voice if we are going to be successful in avoiding the dismantling and destruction of CFA.

Furthermore, it would appear that some members of Parliament will use whatever story they can to erode public confidence in the CFA model and services provided by volunteers in an endeavour to justify the flawed CFA carve up.

The mis-use of response time data reporting and claims that performance gaps are caused by the CFA current structure and legislation are totally misleading. And the inference that volunteers aren’t up to the task of providing modern urban firefighting services is a slap in the face to volunteers and a blatant lack of respect for the professional work volunteers do. Sure there are circumstances when service demands will exceed volunteer capacity and everyone agrees that our interests need to be driven by community safety, but the fact is that where there are service gaps, the existing CFA model has the ability to grow and evolve service, adding equipment, infrastructure, paid firefighter support and other support to supplement volunteers based on local needs.

For the Government to infer that response time service problems are caused by the current CFA legislation or the CFA volunteer and fully integrated service model is bull. When these comments and inferences are made, take the time to educate your local MP and your local communities about the facts.

We should not silently tolerate anyone who is misusing data or spreading selective spin to denigrate volunteers just for the sake of a political or industrial agenda. Whilst VFBV can seek to bring things to order at a broad level, the best place to hold some people to account will be via your local community.