Where there’s smoke

THE United Firefighters Union needs to convince the public it is not a big, scaley union that could destroy the beloved volunteers of the CFA.

Under secretary Peter Marshall, the UFU is at pains to deny accusations it is a rogue outfit that can act aggressively and in a bullying way to pursue its own ends.

And now the union has launched a court action to try to stop an independent review of bullying and sexism in the fire services from ever seeing the light of day.

Needless to say this is a very stupid thing to do for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the public has a right to know of any systemic cultural problems occurring in the public bodies that they fund with their taxes.

Secondly, the UFU appears to be attempting a cover up rather than accepting what could be a chance to identify shortcomings and improve.

As has been noted, when the Police Association faced their review by the same body — the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission — they embraced it as a catalyst for change.

Finally, it further complicates an already unseemly and tangled relationship between Premier Daniel Andrews and the UFU.

How can Mr Andrews not condemn this action to essentially suppress the Equal Opportunity group’s investigation when that probe was established after a review by his own Government raised concerns about MFB and CFA culture.

This blunt move by the UFU could certainly attract the attention of crossbenchers set to vote on the Andrews Government’s controversial restructure of the state’s fire services. Mr Andrews must be thinking: With friends like these who needs enemies?

We are being asked to believe that the empowered UFU members will harmoniously coexist with volunteers under the proposed new system.

But with every aggressive new ploy Mr Marshall and his mates are making that harder and harder to believe.