South Australian Employment Tribunal gives notice of intention to approve SAMFS Enterprise Agreement
In extremely welcome news I am able to advise members that we have received correspondence from the South Australian Employment Tribunal including notice of its intention to approve the SAMFS enterprise agreement. I understand that this has already been distributed by your employer.
In providing that notice the Commission indicated that it had considered written submissions filed by Robert Baker on 6 February 2026, as well as the responses from the UFUSA and deemed employer and was accordingly satisfied that no further action was necessary pursuant to s 79(4) of the Fair Work Act 1994 (SA). Furthermore, SAET has indicated that on the basis of the evidence available to it SAET is satisfied that the Agreement should be approved.
The notice gives a further period of time for objections to be received about the Agreement, and so it is possible that there will be further developments, however with the Tribunal having already considered and rejected the complaints which have been made I am hopeful that we will see prompt approval of the Agreement upon the expiry of that weeks’ notice.
Baker, for his part, not only continued to pursue his objection by filing a nine plus page document, he also attempted to agitate a complaint about the union’s wordbacks. Remarkably, Baker actually suggested that the union be prohibited from publishing comment letting members know what is happening with their own Enterprise Agreement.
Quite properly, no such directions were made by the Commissioner.
Although now apparently concerned about reputational damage Baker had no problem distributing his own correspondence to regional stations in 2024 including making claims that the union had “failed to actively represent” Retained Firefighters in previous bargaining, and claiming that the union “cannot be relied upon to put forward claims for the benefit of the retained work group” as a part of his attempt to convince people to authorise him as their representative.
Baker was not concerned by making and distributing broadly these slurs on the current and past UFUSA members, shop stewards, officials, employees and volunteer State Council members who have worked hard to deliver in each bargaining round and who his statements denigrate, nor has he properly apologised for publishing those statements. We reject his claims in the strongest possible terms. Those involved in past bargaining efforts deserve respect for the time and effort they have put into advancing the interests of all members collectively.
Remarkably, having previously distributed these attacks on the union Baker’s own materials confirmed what we described in the previous wordback. That is: between 4 February 2025 and 14 November 2025 Baker’s efforts in bargaining were to send one singular email in August, and he did nothing more at that time after being told that the Agreement was being negotiated by the parties. After requesting a meeting in November having receiving information on the Government’s offer, he did again did nothing further to press that request until the exposure draft was received.
Any Retained Firefighters who authorised Baker are now entitled to consider Baker’s efforts against his own criticisms of the union. I leave that to them.
I hope that all will reflect on this experience, recognise that our strength is in unity and commit to active participation in our next bargaining campaign without divisive behaviour.
The UFUSA is proud of the result achieved for all Firefighters and other workers covered by the Agreement in this negotiating round, and I personally look forward to working with those who want to put in the work to build our union and its strength and power to ensure that we achieve strong results in the next round.
In the event there are any further developments rest assured I will let you know.
Rule change:
I advise members that the rule change previously notified of in Wordback 35 of 2025 has been approved by the SAET, and accordingly now forms part of the UFUSA rules.
In Solidarity,
