Victoria's controversial fire services reforms could be amended to get through parliament, but the government says it won't touch the least popular part.
The move to make the Country Fire Authority volunteer-only and put all paid firefighters into a new Fire Rescue Victoria is in parliamentary limbo, with key crossbenchers saying they don't support the bill in its current form.
"I've always said we'll consider amendments to this legislation and we'll be engaging with the cross bench, with the Greens and other parties," Emergency Services Minister James Merlino told reporters on Tuesday.
"I'm not going to flag what the amendments might be."
The bill has reached a deadlock in the upper house, after a parliamentary committee investigating the changes finished their inquiry divided along party lines.
The Greens and Sex Party support the changes, but the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, Conservatives, and opposition do not.
Vote 1 Local Jobs MP James Purcell says he does not support the changes in their current form, but has left the door open to changing his vote if the right amendments are made.
"I know the government are working on amendments," Mr Purcell told AAP.
However both Mr Merlino and Premier Daniel Andrews on Tuesday ruled out splitting presumptive cancer compensation rights, which has bipartisan support, from the bill.
"I've always said when you've got significant reform you put all of the elements of those reforms into one bill and that's exactly what we've done," Mr Merlino said.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said it was time to call it quits on the reform.
"The bill is a dud, the bill appears dead, the government either needs to withdraw the bill and take it to the next election or put it to the parliament and have it voted on," Mr Guy said.
The government says the changes are needed to make a 50-year-old system fit modern Victoria.
However it also needs the changes to pass in order to break a pay dispute during which a minister has resigned, a fire board was sacked and federal law changes were introduced to protect the role of emergency volunteers.
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