A training module that Fire Rescue Victoria could not deliver during the pandemic delayed two firefighters’ progression to Leading Firefighter by about two years, and FRV paid them an allowance for that delay. The Commission has now found that the same delay does not give rise to a second allowance while they wait to reach the next classification.
Commissioner Perica answered the question put for arbitration in Fire Rescue Victoria’s favour in United Firefighters’ Union of Australia v Fire Rescue Victoria [2026] FWC 3457, issued on 10 September 2026. The dispute came to the Commission under s.739 of the Fair Work Act 2009, which allows the Commission to deal with a dispute under an agreement’s own dispute settlement procedure, in this case clause 26 of Division B of the Fire Rescue Victoria Operational Employees Interim Enterprise Agreement 2020. The application was filed on 15 August 2025 and heard in Melbourne on 24 February 2026.
Both members began employment with the Country Fire Authority in February 2016 and held the Qualified Firefighter classification in 2020. The Command-and-Control module was not available during the pandemic, and it was a prerequisite for moving from Qualified Firefighter to Leading Firefighter. A document dated 24 March 2020 tendered in evidence listed the Leading Firefighter course as “on hold and under review”. One member finished the module on 14 April 2022 and was appointed to the Leading Firefighter classification on 15 April 2022; the other finished it on 27 May 2022 and was appointed on that date. FRV identified both as eligible for the clause 12.14.1.7 allowance from 9 April 2020 and paid it. Between 2020 and 2022 the allowance was also paid to another 268 Division B firefighters.
Clause 12.3.8 defines Senior Leading Firefighter as a “career firefighter who has completed 5 years’ service” at the classification of Leading Firefighter, and no modules or assessments separate the two ranks. The UFU sought the allowance again from 9 April 2025, arguing that, but for the unavailability of the module, the five-year service threshold would have been met in 2025 instead of 2027.
Where access to internal progression is not provided in accordance with this clause (clause 12), FRV will pay employees an allowance equal to the difference between their substantive wages and the wages they would have attained if access was provided.
that nothing in the text or context of the subclause “suggests that FRV’s duty to pay an allowance is exhausted on its first exercise”, that the two-year delay flowed through to the five-year service threshold, and that on FRV’s reading no allowance could ever be payable between the two ranks, a “bizarre and incongruous result”. It also pointed to overtime being calculated on the Leading Firefighter rate rather than the Senior Leading Firefighter rate, and to a disadvantage in internal processes where the date of qualification is a selection criterion.
that the subclause is directed at a specific factum, access to internal progression not being provided in accordance with clause 12, and that the phrase is “no more than a convenient shorthand directing attention to the relevant step within cl 12 that has not been relevantly provided”. It submitted that the progression pathway sets minimum rather than maximum timeframes, and that a “generous construction” “is not to be applied with disregard to the text solely in favour of one party to an agreement”.
that the plain words of the subclause could support the union’s reading, but that the surrounding context did not. The other subclauses of clause 12.14 are concerned with access to courses, modules and assessments, and it “would be passing strange” if that context did not colour the meaning of “access to internal progression”. Because no modules or assessments are required to move from Leading Firefighter to Senior Leading Firefighter, the subclause is not activated, and neither member will have completed five years at the lower classification until 2027.
The Commissioner also said he had raised at the hearing his disquiet about an allowance being available at each level of the structure as a firefighter is promoted. He accepted there was little prospect of a further cascading allowance for these two members, because the classification above Senior Leading Firefighter, Station Officer, is reached by application. He found, however, that a live question remained about the lower classifications, and that on the union’s construction a firefighter delayed at Level 2 could qualify for the allowance in respect of each classification above, a result he described as “anathema to the rigid heirachy [sic] within the classification structure”.
At a glance
- Parties: United Firefighters’ Union of Australia and Fire Rescue Victoria
- Citation: [2026] FWC 3457, Commissioner Perica, 10 September 2026
- Provisions: s.739, Fair Work Act 2009; cl 12.14.1.7, Division B, FRV Operational Employees Interim Enterprise Agreement 2020
- Outcome: No further allowance payable; the entitlement was discharged in 2022 when the members attained the Leading Firefighter classification
- Who it affects: Division B firefighters covered by the Interim Agreement
The decision reads “access to internal progression” in clause 12.14.1.7 as access to the training modules and assessments needed to reach a particular classification. On that construction the allowance does not attach to the step from Leading Firefighter to Senior Leading Firefighter, which turns on five years’ service alone. The dispute is determined.
Source: [2026] FWC 3457
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