Former Country Fire Authority chief executive officer, Lucinda Nolan, has described the current firefighters’ enterprise bargaining agreement as being “destructive and divisive” to the CFA.

Ms Nolan also stated the EBA would impact the “entire organisation”, at today’s hearing of the Inquiry into Fire Season Preparedness.

“Today we’ve yet again learned just how disastrous the current CFA EBA would be for volunteers,” said State Member for Gippsland East, Tim Bull.

“Lucinda Nolan has said there would be a significant impact across the CFA, including the organisation’s ability to function in a timely matter as an effective emergency service.

“She also said that in negotiating alternate arrangements she had no room to move and the she was either told to sign or resign. This damning evidence shows just what a bad deal this CFA EBA would be to volunteers of East Gippsland.

“But our Premier is ignoring these concerns and it is time he actually listened to volunteers,” he said.

Ms Nolan said CFA had serious concerns with 50 clauses that would hand a veto power to the militant United Firefighters Union (UFU).

There were serious concerns the wording of the proposed clauses would require the CFA to ‘consult and agree’ with the union and would “open the flood gates for us to be held up at Fair Work”, Ms Nolan said.

Ms Nolan resigned in June and told the inquiry it was because she could not “oversee the destruction of the CFA”.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016