The divide between CFA staff and volunteers has been compared to both the South African apartheid, and Russian communists and socialists by Bill Tilley.
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Speaking in Victorian Parliament, the Benambra MLA was expressing his concerns about the influence the United Firefighters Union could have on new Fire Rescue Victoria.
He said if operations managers were employed by FRV, the “treacherous tentacles” of the union would also reach the CFA.
The “professional jealousy” in integrated CFA stations, like Wodonga and Wangaratta, was compared to the racial segregation seen in South Africa until the 1990s.
“Let me tell you that in some of these integrated stations throughout the state of Victoria apartheid is bloody well alive,” Mr Tilley said.
“Those imaginary lines in some of those integrated stations now will be clearly marked yellow and god help any volunteer who crosses some of those lines – heaven help those poor buggers.”
He then likened the situation to the George Orwell novel Animal Farm, saying union boss Peter Marshall could be the “treacherous, crafty character” of Napoleon.
“We live it every day – that book has certainly gone a long way to make me the person that I am today and it is a big part of the reason why I sit with a Coalition rather than the Trotskyites, the communists and the socialists we have got on the other side,” he said.
“They will be dragging these operation managers and those career firefighters down, together with the fine respect and regard that the operations managers and operations officers have, with the support they give to volunteers in their training.”
