Garrett's factional patron, senator Kim Carr, had been frantically trying to help Andrews reach a deal that would save federal Labor more embarrassment over what looked like a naked union power grab. Carr, one of Labor's fixers in Victoria, wanted to protect Garrett's reputation too. He had worked with Andrews on an arrangement that allowed Garrett to backdown and keep her job and accept defeat with dignity.

Garrett dug in. She was isolated – but wasn't alone. Attorney General Martin Pakula was one of the other ministers concerned about the cost. Anywhere between $150 million and $1.2 billion – depending on who you believed – would be needed to pay for the industrial agreement that set firefighters' wages.

Personal battle

While the cunning and prickly secretary of the firefighters union, Peter Marshall, repeated endlessly that it was about making Victorians safer, in reality it was a fight over power. Marshall wanted a near-veto over any changes that would effect his members, including changes to rosters, new equipment, even the style of their uniforms and helmets.

The fight was personal too. The passionate and engaging Garrett had fallen out badly with Marshall. "They hate each other," said one player in Victorian politics who knows both.

United Firefighters Union secretary Peter Marshall was determined to extend his union's power over the CFA. Angela Wylie

Andrews had called a cabinet meeting at 10am on Friday, June 10 – exactly mid-way through the federal campaign – to endorse his decision to give the union most of what it wanted. In a terse meeting a few minutes before, while Shorten was on his way to a Western Sydney primary school, Garrett told Andrews she was resigning.

It was one of the most extraordinary moments of the 2016 election campaign. Until Garrett took her fateful step, the fight between the CFA and firefighters' union was primarily an in-house Labor cultural clash: the inner-city feminist minister against the working class employer-hating union leader. Garrett's transformation into a political martyr raised legitimate questions about the limits of union power and turned it into the biggest story in Shorten's home state.


Labor had hoped to win two or three federal seats in Victoria. Instead, it lost one. Final counting in the House of Representatives this week left the Coalition with a one-seat majority. Garrett and Marshall may have changed the course of political history.

Across the aisle

For months, a few figures in the federal Coalition had watched with interest. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Dan Tehan, who held the Victorian seat of Wannon, was on a trip to Gallipoli for Anzac Day in April when he read that Marshall had flown to Canberra to see Shorten. It looked like the Labor leader, who saw himself as a master negotiator, was getting personally involved in the CFA dispute. "Everyone, including Mr Shorten, is keen to see this resolved as soon as possible," the opposition leader's press secretary said in the article.

Adam Bandt in 2010 1/8 ▶ 2010, 2013 elections UFU supports Greens Party and Adam Bandt in the electorate of Melbourne SOURCE: FINANCIAL REVIEW | INTERACTIVE: LES HEWITT Fighting fires The union dispute that cost Labor the election ▶ 2013 The CFA 2010 Enterprise Agreement nominally expires. Bargaining between the UFU and CFA commences. UFU makes various claims concerning veto rights over organisational decision making, rostering, opposing part-time or flexible working arrangements, and insisting on separate command structures for professional firefighters and volunteers. CFA position is that these would be unworkable for the Authority, and inconsistent with its charter under the CFA Act. The Victorian Government supports the CFA position. 2/8 ▶ Nov 2014 UFU campaigns for Labor in state election. Union leader Peter Marshall later writes to Premier Daniel Andrews asserting that polling conservatively estimates a 4.5% swing in seats where there was a firefighter presence - and up to 7% in some marginal seats. In seats where there was not a firefighter presence the swing was as low as 1.75% “Your own electorate probably benefited from this swing.” 3/8 ▶ 2015 Peter Marshall writes to Daniel Andrews complaining he is not honouring a deal. “In the next Federal election there are marginal seats where firefighters could make a significant difference. They may again be engaged but the level and nature of support are yet to be determined. Given our disappointment in the Andrews Government, delegates will meet to consider our strategy - to determine if we are to be involved, whom we should support, and on what basis.” National and State Secretary of United Fire Fighters Union Peter Marshall Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews ▶ Apr 2016 Peter Marshall meets with Bill Shorten in Canberra and 21 MPs, according to media reports. 4/8 ▶ Apr Peter Marshall meets with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews in Melbourne. ▶ Nov 2015 Conciliation process in the Fair Work Commission breaks down. The Victorian Government and Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett support the CFA position. ▶ Late Apr Premier Andrews directs Minister Garrett to require CFA to cease proceeding with the proposed roll over agreement. Minister Garrett opposes the position but complies. Steven Michaelson of Shorten’s office in contact with the parties. Victorian Government position now supports UFU claims - a 180 reversal. ▶ May CFA is directed to participate in further negotiations with the UFU in the FWC assisted by Commissioner Roe. Matt O’Connor from IR Victoria leads Government position in negotiations. Tony Bates from DPC also intervenes and brokers arrangements between IR Victoria, DPC and UFU. CFA is not involved in various meetings between these groups. ▶ May 27-29 Senior public servant Tony Bates tries to broker a deal with the union at its offices. The CFA is not involved. 5/8 ▶ Jun 1 The Fair Work Commission comes up with its own proposal, which Andrews informs Garrett will be the position of the Victorian Government and the CFA should accept it. Garrett refuses and requires the issue to be taken to Cabinet. ▶ Jun 6 The Victorian Cabinet meets. Garrett refuses to support the deal, and Cabinet does not over-rule her. ▶ Jun 3 Cabinet’s Emergency Services Committee supports the government’s position over Garrett, who has legal advice the deal would be unlawful. ▶ Jun 7 Labor leader Bill Shorten criticises Malcolm Turnbull for campaigning on the dispute: “Mr Turnbull’s weighed in for political reasons only into what is clearly a state issue.” ▶ Jun 5 The CFA states that it cannot accept the deal. 6/8 ▶ Jun 9 The CFA board reviews legal advice from the state government lawyer that says the deal is unlawfully discriminatory. It confirms it will not accept the deal. ▶ Jun 10 Garrett resigns before a Cabinet meeting that endorse the. Deputy Premier James Merlino replaces her and directs the CFA to accept the deal before 5 pm Friday or he will remove the CFA Board. Board does not accept and the removal process begins. Jane Garrett 7/8 ▶ Jun 9 Victorian industrial relations minister Natalie Hutchins tells parliament the president of the Fair Work Commission, Iain Ross, assured her the deal promoted diversity and would not undermine volunteers. Ross denies he said this. Hutchins retracts and apologies on the basis that she misspoke. ▶ Jul 2 Labor loses federal election. 8/8 ▶ Jun 17 CFA chief executive Lucinda Nolan resigns. Andrews appoints 5 new members to CFA Board. ▶ Jun 10 CFA volunteers start legal action in the Supreme Court. They obtain injunction preventing the CFA from putting any agreement to employees until consultation has occurred with volunteers. Joe Buffone ▶ Jun 30 Chief fire officer Joe Buffone resigns. Lucinda Nolan ▶ Jun 14 CFA Board members, facing removal, are provided with a copy of the proposed deal by the state government for the first time. SOURCE: FINANCIAL REVIEW Timeline - swipe for more “In the next Federal election there are marginal seats where firefighters could make a significant difference. They may again be engaged but the level and nature of support are yet to be determined. Given our disappointment in the Andrews Government, delegates will meet to consider our strategy - to determine if we are to be involved, whom we should support, and on what basis.” ▶ 2015 Peter Marshall writes to Daniel Andrews complaining he is not honouring a deal. ▶ Late Apr Premier Andrews directs Minister Garrett to require CFA to cease proceeding with the proposed roll over agreement. Minister Garrett opposes the position but complies. Steven Michaelson of Shorten’s office in contact with the parties. Victorian Government position now supports UFU claims - a 180 reversal. Australian Financial Review Interactive Interactive graphic by Les Hewitt

Tehan believed the meeting was political dynamite. For the first time there was a direct link between federal Labor and the union's demands. Representing a federal electorate in Western Victoria, he understood the CFA's strong volunteer culture. His first unpaid job was assistant treasurer for the local fire brigade when he was 16. Tehan saw the conflict between the CFA volunteers and the firefighters' union in starkly philosophical terms: a struggle between the rights of the individual against the wishes of the collective.

Three weeks later Tehan stood outside the CFA fire station in the picturesque wool town of Maryborough and looked into the unblinking eye of a video camera. Many residents still remembered the 1985 bushfires when three people were killed and 180 houses destroyed.

"Volunteers have kept this community safe for over 150 years," Tehan said. "Yet last month Bill Shorten had a secret meeting with Peter Marshall. No-one knows what was discussed at that meeting but we can be sure that Bill Shorten would have said to Peter Marshall: 'Don't worry Peter. I'm going to run the country like a union organiser'."

(Marshall denied discussing the CFA dispute at the meeting.)


Opposition Leader Wouldn’t talk about the dispute during the campaign, despite Coalition claims he was trying to orchestrate a resolution. Peter Marshall Bill Shorten Former Emergency Services Minister Unsuccessfully opposed, on public policy grounds, the workplace agreement negotiated by the union and agreed to by her own government. Jane Garrett Labor Senator for Victoria Garrett’s political patron and long-time Shorten ally tried to negotiate a settlement that would satisfy the firefighters’ union and save her job. Kim Carr Premier of Victoria Decided to bring the dispute to a head during the federal election campaign, badly damaging federal Labor’s campaign in Victoria. Daniel Andrews Secretary of United Firefighters’ Union Was determined to use an agreement over wages and conditions for paid Country Fire Authority employees to extend his power over the CFA. SOURCE: FINANCIAL REVIEW Who’s who Main players in the CFA dispute Australian Financial Review Interactive Interactive graphic by Les Hewitt

Watched more than 8000 times, it was the most successful campaign video Tehan had ever shot. It was the first time anyone had seized on the dispute within the federal government, which was still debating how to attack Labor in the upcoming election campaign.

Power and money

On the surface, the dispute was a routine negotiation between the union and the CFA over pay and conditions for its 880 employees. In reality, it was a titanic struggle over power and money.

The 396-page industrial agreement was packed with clauses, schedules and tables specifying how CFA employees would work. Firefighters would be banned from simple tasks, including pumping air into tyres or changing wheels, unless it was an emergency, or greasing up the chassis of any fire truck. No firefighters would be allowed to do the work of someone of a lower rank, even for a single shift.

The most powerful sentence appeared half way down page 39: "No proposal for change arising from this agreement shall be implemented without referral to the Consultative Committee." The committee would be Marshall's vehicle to control the CFA. Made up of an equal number of CFA managers and union representatives, it would operate like a board of directors.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews met firefighters at a CFA station in Springvale, in south-east Melbourne, after overruling Jane Garrett on the industrial agreement with the firefighters' union. Chris Hopkins

The committee would be sent briefing papers a week in advance by the CFA, which would have to provide it with administrative support. It would have the power to call in outside experts for advice and set up consultative groups and sub-committees to oversee training, uniforms, rosters, vehicles, training and other operational areas. Votes would not be needed because the committee, which would meet when most convenient for union officials, would operate "on the basis of consensus".


Garrett, who worked at Australia's largest labour law firm for six years, had never seen an industrial agreement like it.

Ninety-seven per cent of CFA staff are volunteers – about 60,000 people – working in stations dotted around the state, and in areas susceptible to bushfires. A small professional unionised firefighting staff cover urban areas, including the 60 per cent of suburban Melbourne assigned to the CFA under an outdated law.

Most firefighters' union members worked for the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, which had responsibility for the rest of Melbourne. Marshall had been campaigning for years to have the CFA folded into the Metropolitan Fire Brigade but even Labor governments had resisted giving him that much power.

Now, he was using his small CFA membership to exert control over the entire organisation. By dictating when and how firefighters would be employed, he could maximise the number that needed to be hired, and the generous allowances they would receive for working weekends or at night. His members would benefit, and his union would become more powerful.

The CFA was horrified. Garrett decided to fight.

Talking tough

Marshall was a tough negotiator. The negotiations, which had been going on three years, were so difficult that up to 10 agencies, departments and individuals were trying to resolve them at the same time. This included Garrett's department, top officials from the premier's department, the government's industrial relations agency, former Victorian Labor president Greg Sword and the chairman of the Victorian Building Industry Disputes Panel, Peter Parkinson.

Government officials would spend hours negotiating with union officials over a few clauses, only to be told Marshall had vetoed the changes the next day.


Environment Minister Greg Hunt, right, urged Malcolm Turnbull to campaign on the CFA dispute. Don Arnold

Relations between Garrett and Marshall were tense. The tough-talking veteran unionist didn't hold back. "You're f---ed," he once told the minister, according to a person present. "I am going to put an axe in your f---ing head." (Marshall denied saying this to Garrett.)

Even though both are on Labor's left, they are from different political traditions. Born in 1973, Garrett was raised an inner-city feminist by a baptist minister father and English teacher mother, who took her on street protests against nuclear weapons. She became an anti-discrimination lawyer, joined the Labor Party, worked for a judge on the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, and became a political adviser to Premier Steve Bracks. She made her career fighting for social justice and feminism.

Born in 1961, Marshall grew up in West Brunswick, a northern Melbourne suburb now gentrified but then staunchly working class. His mother was a sewing machinist in a factory that made soldiers uniforms, according to a family associate. To generate extra money, she sold chocolates and milk-shakes at night. After school he joined the Metropolitan Fire Brigade and became a believer in class war, those who know him say. "Bosses" were the enemy of employees, could never be trusted and needed to be fought constantly.

After more than 20 years running the union, Marshall saw himself as a political player in Victoria. Even though his union was formally aligned with Labor – and could vote in internal Labor elections – it campaigned for Greens MP Adam Bandt in the 2010 and 2013 elections, when he defeated Labor candidates in the prized seat of Melbourne. "I want to thank Peter Marshall from the United Firefighters Union for your support and wisdom over many years," Bandt said in his maiden speech.

Even though his membership was small, Marshall knew the community's huge respect for firefighters gave it an outsized political power. The perfect time to use that power was coming: an election that polls suggested was going to be unexpectedly close and give his Labor a shot at power.

Gutting a deal

Unable to conclude a deal with the intransigent union, the CFA told Garrett it wanted to unilaterally give its paid firefighters a 19 per cent pay rise over six years. In almost all other respects the existing workplace agreement would be kept. Marshall's demands would be simply ignored. Nothing much would change. Garrett agreed and convinced cabinet it was the right strategy.


Then, after meeting Marshall without Garrett present, Andrews flipped.

In late April, the premier told Garrett to direct the CFA to resume negotiations. The union would not be circumvented. The Fair Work Commission was called in to help reach a deal. A commissioner with a history in the Communist Party, Julius Roe, gathered Marshall and some of the other key players into the tribunal offices on Exhibition Street in Melbourne on May 30.

Malcolm Turnbull was a lucklustre campaigner but he was treated like a hero at a CFA volunteers' rally at the Victorian Parliament. Daniel Pockett

Roe had an announcement: he had come up with a solution. A sharp intake of breathes could be heard around the room. The union would be briefed first. After a few minutes with Roe – presumably getting a run down on the plan – Marshall threatened to walk out with his entire delegation.

With the talks on the brink of collapse, Roe and a senior public servant from the premier's office sat down with Marshall and his team in a conference room reserved for the union. Senior executives from the CFA – still not knowing what Roe's proposal was – sat in their own conference room waiting for three hours while Roe worked with the union.

Then, Roe and the public servant walked in. This is the "new deal", the stunned CFA executives were told. Roe spent less than 10 minutes in the room. The new plan didn't have everything the union had asked for. But it still contained the "consultative committee" that would give Marshall huge control over the CFA. (A spokeswoman for Roe wouldn't comment.)

The following day, Andrews declared Roe's recommendation the government's official position. It would be up to Garrett to bring the CFA into line. Garrett was being ordered to push through a deal she believed would cost Victorians a fortune, entrench union power at the expense of volunteers' morale and autonomy, and make it harder to hire more women firefighters by limiting part-time work.

She had been abandoned by her own side. Her glittering career was falling apart.


Hunt on case

Federal environment minister Greg Hunt got a call from the president of the association that represented CFA volunteers, Neville Jones, two days after Roe handed over his recommendation. The two men knew each other well. Jones was captain of a CFA station in Hunt's electorate in south-east Victoria. His father-in-law was Hunt's godfather.

Jones pleaded for help. He said that volunteer firefighters were devastated by Andrews' support for the union's claim.

Hunt grasped a social cause and a political opportunity. He called Michaelia Cash, the industrial relations minister, and Malcolm Turnbull, the same day. "This is a big issue and has the potential to be enormous in Victoria because it is deep and substantial," he told the prime minister.

A demoralised Jane Garrett leaves her Carlton home the day after resigning. Chris Hopkins

Turnbull wanted to be kept informed. Cash and Hunt and their staff had a formal meeting with the leadership of the CFA volunteers' organisation where the politicians were walked through the implications of the industrial agreement. (Hunt dialled in.)

Cash and Hunt decided they wanted to support the volunteers politically, by speaking out for their cause and formulated a four-pronged strategy to veto the agreement. They sent up a small team to work on the issue: Cash's chief of staff and one of Hunt's political advisers. They worked with Brad Battin, a state Liberal MP who was the party's spokesman on emergency services, and staff in the office of Matthew Guy, the state opposition leader.

Cash, who is a West Australian, flew to Melbourne for discussions at the Liberal Party campaign headquarters. At that meeting it was decided the Coalition should do everything it could to block the agreement. The CFA volunteers had planned a rally on the steps of state parliament on the morning of Sunday, June 5 – a public show of force designed to shame Andrews into pulling back his support for the firefighters' union. The volunteers' leaders wanted Turnbull there.


'Right thing to do'

The prime minister's schedule during the election campaign was tightly controlled. Turnbull barely had 10 minutes to spare a day. Asking him to drop his plans and turn up to a public rally against a state government was politically risky. Everyone remembered Liberal leader John Hewson's appearance during the 1993 election when some of his rallies turned violent. Cash and Hunt discussed if there was the risk of a political backlash if Turnbull personally injected himself into a state issue. They agreed it was worth it.

Hunt called Turnbull Saturday night. He talked the prime minister through the issue again, and put forward Cash's legislative fix, which he wanted Turnbull to announce to the CFA volunteers.

Hunt compared the situation to the 2004 election when Prime Minister John Howard backed Tasmanian logging workers against Labor leader Mark Latham, who wanted to conserve more forests. When Howard turned up to a meeting of loggers he was cheered, a moment that was seen as a turning point in the campaign, which the Coalition won decisively.

"This is your Howard CFMEU moment," Hunt told Turnbull. Turnbull barely hesitated. "I will go," he told Hunt. "I have got to do this. It is the right thing to do."

Cash flew to Sydney, and caught the prime minister's Air Force jet to Melbourne with Turnbull the next morning. She explained to him how the legal changes would work. Turnbull agreed it would be the first legislative item if the Coalition was re-elected.

Daniel Andrews and Bill Shorten in Melbourne's Federation Square a week after Jane Garrett's resignation rocked his campaign. Alex Ellinghausen

Hunt drove from his home on the Mornington Peninsula that morning. He texted Turnbull, who was on his way to the Victorian Parliament from the airport, to let him know about 3500 volunteers had turned up in rain and 13 degrees weather. TV cameras and journalists waited for the speeches to begin. Almost no-one knew the prime minister was on the way.


Turnbull, whose election performance up to then had been widely criticised as wooden, was welcomed like a conquering hero. "We stand with you," he said, wearing a fleece jacket surrounded by men in yellow CFA coats. "The idea that you be would over-ruled – subordinated – to the UFU is incredible."

Turnbull promised to legislate the deal out of existence. The crowd lapped it up.

The Carr factor

There wasn't much sympathy for the Country Fire Authority in the Labor Party senior ranks. The board had been appointed by the previous Liberal state government. At least one member, King & Wood Mallesons banking lawyer Katherine Forrest, was well connected in the Liberal Party.

CFA fire stations are more likely to be in National and Liberal electorates. Station captains are often men of high standing in their communities, and regarded suspiciously as establishment figures by local Labor activists. Wives played a subordinate role – the CFA cake stand is a perennial weekend feature of many country communities.

Labor officials were painfully aware of the danger of taking on a volunteer organisation with 60,000 members. Even though it was a state dispute, they knew some voters might think Shorten was just as likely as Andrews to give into union demands.

Fuelled by leaks from in and outside government, the Herald Sun relentlessly campaigned against the firefighters' union. As the biggest-selling paper in the state, its front-page assaults ricocheted across the media landscape. Liberal campaign headquarters in Melbourne seized on the dispute to solicit donations and volunteers for the federal election.

Garrett's political patron, Victorian senator Kim Carr, decided to step in. On the same weekend Turnbull promised to legislate the deal out of existence, Carr was working with Andrews to find a way to save Garrett. Carr led a Labor sub-faction in Victoria called the Industrial Left (because it was backed by several unions). The group had propelled Garrett into Parliament and the ministry. If there was anyone who could influence Garrett it was the veteran Labor politician.


Carr admired Garrett. She had an engaging personality, sharp political skills and a friendly smile that endeared her to voters in her hip Brunswick seat. In 2011 she was elected vice-president of the federal Labor Party in a national vote of members – an impressive achievement for a state backbencher.

In government the relatively new minister, under attack from Marshall, had become too close to the CFA, Carr felt. She needed to assert control over the agency. Even some former CFA board members felt that Garrett had taken on a fight she could never win, and one that had caused huge damage to the CFA's morale and reputation.

Later, Carr argued that the CFA resisted the deal to embarrass the Labor Party. "As an observer it struck me that the CFA was not interested in an settlement before the election," he said. CFA sources said it was Andrews who forced the deal through during the campaign and he could have easily found a pretext for a delay.

Carr tried to negotiate a resolution that would end the dispute and allow Garrett to keep her job. Andrews wasn't going to back down, even in the face of overwhelming media hostility. An online Herald Sun poll put opposition to the deal at 92 per cent. Garrett, who was under huge personal and political pressure, had run out of options. If Garrett couldn't live with the agreement she would have to return to the backbench.

Shortly before the cabinet meeting on June 10, Garrett became one of the rarest creatures in Australian politics: a minister who resigns on principle. Andrews immediately replaced her with James Merlino, his deputy. Merlino told the CFA board, which had legal advice the agreement was unlawful, to implement the deal or be fired. It chose the latter.

Ambushed

The CFA volunteers were outraged. They threatened to appear at polling booths on election day in full uniform – against direct orders – and urge voters to reject Labor. Shorten seemed to avoid campaigning in locations where he was likely to be ambushed by CFA volunteers, including the seat of Corangamite around Geelong.

Andrews couldn't hide. Dan Tehan, the Veterans' Affairs minister, was invited to the opening of a wind farm near the Western Victorian town on Ararat on June 14. Andrews would be the guest of honour. Tehan alerted the local Liberal MP, who organised 200 CFA volunteers to turn up and embarrass the premier. The protest received wide media coverage.


Three days later the CFA's chief executive officer, Lucinda Nolan, resigned. She was followed by the CFA's fire-fighting chief, Joe Buffone.

The story had dominated the airwaves in Victoria for a month, and would continue up to election day, when thousands of CFA volunteers stood near polling booths holding signs that said "Hands off the CFA" and other slogans. In Chisholm, the one seat Labor lost in the whole country, Liberals wearing pro-CFA t-shirts handed out how-to-vote cards. CFA volunteers didn't campaign in Chisholm, according to their spokesman.

The precise impact is in dispute. The national swing to Labor was 3.3 per cent. In Victoria it was 2.1 per cent. It is remarkable that Labor's weakest state was Shorten's home ground.

Labor leaders accept that Garrett's resignation hardened perceptions the CFA was a victim of a union takeover and made it hard for Labor to get voters interested in its attacks on Turnbull. But they don't accept it changed the outcome. "It was a vote blocker not a vote shifter," one shadow Labor minister said. Marshall argues it had no electoral effect.

Tehan believes it made the difference between a hung Parliament and a slim Coalition majority. A long-time Labor activist who advised the CFA volunteers, Garth Head, estimated it cost Labor 2 percentage points of the vote in Victoria. Without it, Labor would have won 74 seats in the 150-seat Parliament, he said. Assuming the post-election support of the Greens' Brandt and left-leaning independent Andrew Wilkie, Shorten could have been prime minister today.