Malcolm Turnbull must be thanking his lucky stars for Daniel Andrew's obsequious slavishness to the unions. DA's tyrannical edict to unionise the CFA has created outrage and massive backlash. DA has refused to budge, and Shorten has kept silent.

This plays directly to the coalition's assertion that Labor is beholden to the unions and favours them over all else, and MT has donned the mantel of their protector against a greedy and rapacious union and Labor boss.

"The Country Fire Authority board has upped the ante in the dispute over further unionising the organisation through the United Firefighters’ Union’s log of claims. The board met today and announced in an explosive statement that it had rejected the proposed enterprise bargaining agreement with the UFU, saying it had clauses that were “unlawful” and “have no place in modern day workplaces and are out of step with today’s society”.

The move heightens the pressure on the Andrews government, which is discussing the issue in a Cabinet meeting today that may end Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett’s ministerial career. While a circuit-breaker is definitely needed for the government, there is no sign that Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is willing to compromise yet.

The CFA announced its rejection in the statement saying “the Board is not able to approve the EBA in its current form”.

Hi Shadow,
Looks like this one burnt itself out, despite your best efforts to pour petrol on the fire!

Paul,

I suppose it was such a blindingly stupid move by Labor that there was no argument.

This thread should be titled

"How to lose the next election"

"Daniel Andrews has erred badly by throwing the wrong people under a bus in the bitter Country Fire Authority dispute.

In keeping faith with the desires of the ultra-militant United Firefighters Union, it is CFA volunteers, his minister and now the CFA board and potentially the management, that have become collateral damage.

Andrews’s blitzkrieg approach yesterday — in which he got rid of both his dissident Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett and the CFA board — may have been smart in terms of advancing his aim to wrest back control of the situation and put the agreement to bed.

But it has done nothing to assuage doubts about his judgment or increase the small but growing ranks of internal enemies in the ALP caucus.

Party figures monitoring community sentiment say these doubts are restricted to the commentariat and their man is actually flying high in internal polling, on the back of keeping his election promises in transport infrastructure and overseeing a resilient economy.

But surely the disunity and dysfunction seen this week, and the ruthless use of executive power by the Premier to push a deal that primarily advances the interests of the union, will take some gloss off Mr Andrews in a way that not even the ALP party machine’s soft-focus, pastel-coloured campaign ads can repair.

The next move for the government will be to select a board prepared to endorse the proposed agreement which, under the circumstances, amounts to finding patsies prepared to surrender their decision-making capacity to the whim of the cabinet.

Garrett, meanwhile, will retreat to the backbench to find succour with fellow critics of the Premier’s approach such as Adem Somyurek, who still fumes over Andrews’ s decision to dump him over disputed bullying claims that he says were factionally motivated."

This thread should be titled

"How to lose the next election"

Shadow are you trying to pass on a warning to Malcolm.

Paul,

Previously I was worried that MT's intelligent and reasoned approach was losing ground to Shorten's bullcrap baffles brains lines. However, with Shorten's economic policy unravelling, Labor and Greens MPs ripping off employees, forgetting to declare properties and negative gearing them, and now Daniel Andrews bullying and now firing volunteer fire fighters (one step short of raping mother Theresa) Turnbull almost doesn't even have to try.