Vic minister quizzed on firefighter costs

Victoria's Emergency Services Minister James Merlino is promising 450 new firefighters but has been unable to detail the cost of the pledge during an estimates hearing.

Mr Merlino was spruiking the government's delivery in the most recent state budget of a $141.3 million election commitment to recruit and train the firefighters when quizzed about the individual cost per recruit on Tuesday.

He said it was within the funding but he was unable to give a breakdown.

"I cannot give you a per recruit cost," he told Liberal MP David Morris.

"It's delivered within the base funding through the department and we will deliver our election commitment in full."

Mr Merlino said he would take questions about cost per recruit, the total cost to date and that across the forward estimates, on notice.

The scrutiny follows a protracted CFA pay dispute that prompted Premier Daniel Andrews to intervene last year and sack the CFA board to ram through a controversial deal which is still to be finalised due to federal government changes to laws involving volunteers.

Mr Merlino took over from Jane Garrett, who quit as minister in June last year over the deal, which she believed gave too much power to the United Firefighters Union.

Mr Merlino said the estimated cost of the CFA operational agreement was about $160 million, while the MFB agreement was not yet finalised.

He said the wage increases and allowances had been passed on to CFA career firefighters even though the CFA agreement was not finalised.

"Any agreement that contains clauses (hours, training, fostering, career pathways) such as those cannot be finalised through the Fair Work Commission because of the interference of the Turnbull government," he said.

Mr Merlino said 50 MFB firefighters and 194 CFA firefighters will be recruited by June, with another 181 to be recruited this financial year.