Victoria's controversial fire service reforms have passed parliament, ending years of poisonous, political warfare.
The bill abolishes the Metropolitan Fire Brigade and career Country Fire Authority services and establishes Fire Rescue Victoria to serve metropolitan Melbourne, the outer urban fringe and large regional centres, while the CFA becomes volunteer-only.
Firefighters also now have presumptive compensation rights for specified forms of cancer which were likely to be caused by their work.
The bill passed on Thursday night after the Labor government's second overhaul attempt.
A first bid was scuttled when a marathon debate in the upper house spilled into Good Friday and two opposition MPs, who were excused for religious reasons, returned at the last minute to torpedo the bill.
Debate on the reshuffle has raged for years, sparking division between the volunteer and career sectors and their supporters, and becoming a political football in state and federal elections.
The state government has been trying to reform the fire services since 2017 in an effort, it said, to break an impasse in a protracted CFA pay dispute and improve emergency responses.
Pay fights between the CFA and MFB and the United Firefighters Union has seen a revolving door in leadership ranks, former emergency services minister Jane Garrett resign and the intervention of the then-Turnbull government.
