The Humpty Doo fire station was closed on Monday after Chief Fire Officer Mark Spain ironically said he could not get firefighters to do overtime, and thought it was the union politicising the EBA negotiation, while the union said it was a deliberate act to cut costs and NT Fire had not sought out staff to work extra shifts.

Mr Spain was on Katie Woolf’s Mix 104.9 program to claim there were shift vacancies across all fire stations, and that he was required to maintain minimum staffing levels at Darwin, Marrara, Berrimah and Palmerston, while they tried to fill shifts at Humpty Doo Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm where “they could”.

He said he could not guarantee further closures of fire stations in the future.

“Due to significant vacancies this morning, I had to make a very difficult decision, based on risk, that I had to close that Humpty Doo station,” he said.

Mr Spain said the fire watch commander had told him there were two calls made last night to get extra staff and more calls made Monday morning.

He said he did not know why they could not get firefighters to agree to work overtime.

In late May, United Workers Union NT boss Erina Early called on Jamie Chalker to resign as the chief executive of NT Fire and Rescue Service – he is also the Police Commissioner – after she and some firefighters claimed he had used a speech to new recruits on April 20 to call firefighters greedy for claiming overtime and threatening to “go after” a senior fire officer who was also a union delegate.

Six short videos of the speech filmed by media officer Elle Arnold were obtained by the NT Independent through an FOI application, which showed Mr Chalker speaking to recruits during a wide-ranging and disjointed speech about his intention to put an end to union “bullies” who “carry rank in the fire service” bullying fire staff, high overtime expense claims, the ongoing EBA negotiations, training reforms, the impressive length of the Stuart Highway, the NT’s economic prospects and the Beetaloo Basin, amongst other seemingly random topics.

The comments on the released videos were similar to the claims made by the United Workers Union NT, but not in the exact phrasing claimed. It also cannot be verified if other comments were made that were not included in the video segments provided

One firefighting source said there would be a station officer and three firefighters needed to crew the Humpty Doo station, and one of these firefighters had given 24 hours notice they would not be able to work, and there were two other absences from leave approved 12 months in advance, and management were trying to man two extra trucks because they were calling it a high fire danger day.

“Management are liars – it is shifting poor management over a number of years, from the executive to the firefighters,” the source said.

“They say firefighters are refusing to do overtime. They call firefighters greedy for doing overtime, then they are trying to shame firefighters when they elect to spend time with their families or elect to seek work-life balance.

“Why did he (Spain) tell the Chief Minister the reason for the station closure was firefighters ‘booking off’, when in fact it was single firefighter who gave 24 hours notice?

“The rest of the vacancies are because of his ongoing manning issues.

“The crux of the problem here is when the government agreed to opening a station at Humpty Doo, they rejected additional manning. So Humpty Doo is staffed from within established figures.”

Ms Early said there were no calls made to get staff to work the shifts and it was a cost cutting measure.

“I hear that management have turned around, and also the Chief Minister has said, that [it is] because firefighters have called in sick,” she said.

“But they haven’t actually exhausted all their availability to back-fill … they haven’t rang around firies to say, ‘Can you come in at all?’

“This is a cost saving thing to shut Humpty Doo.”

Mr Spain rejected this claim.

“I think Erina has lost her way a little bit there. I absolutely have the community in mind the whole time…I am not sure why so many of my firefighters weren’t able to do overtime. Under normal circumstances I’ve had no real issues up until today,” he said.

“I’ll say very clearly, it’s not a cost saving measure.”

He was then asked by Woolf if it was a situation where “games were being played”?

“All I will say is there is enterprise agreement bargaining going on between the government and the United Workers Union,” he said.

“All this played out about four or five years ago where I had to bring in overtime…”