Victorian fire panel paid $10k a day

Four members of an expert panel charged with reforming Victoria's fire services are getting paid $2600 each per day.

The controversial government reforms are still sitting in the upper house while a committee examines the changes.

The committee has spent six weeks hearing from more than 90 witnesses on the changes and was due to report by Tuesday.

But an interim report tabled in parliament is instead made up of four pages outlining who gave evidence and the issues raised, followed by 400 pages of transcripts.

A complete report is due to be tabled in mid-August, the committee says.

Documents previously tabled in the Legislative Assembly show former NSW fire commissioner Greg Mullins, former federal Labor leader Simon Crean and two other members are paid $2600 by taxpayers for each day they work for the panel.

Installed by the Andrews' administration in May, the panel is understood to have met on only a few occasions.

Also contained in documents submitted to the parliamentary committee is news that Country Fire Authority volunteer brigades are often failing to meet response time targets.

Emergency Services Minister James Merlino said the government's proposed reforms would make a difference.

"Our volunteers do a wonderful job, as do our career firefighters, but our population is growing and Melbourne in 2017 is much different to Melbourne and Victoria of the 1950s and we can see that reflected in the response time data," he told reporters.

"The data shows that where you've got strong volunteers assisted by career firefighters, that's when we get our best response times."

The Andrews' government wants to make the CFA volunteer-only and merge career firefighters with Metropolitan Fire Brigade counterparts to create a new, larger, paid organisation - Fire Rescue Victoria.

The government insists reform is needed to improve a system that is more than 50-years-old and break a pay dispute that has seen a minister resign, a fire board sacked and the federal Turnbull government intervene.

Adding further fuel to the debate is the delayed release of a Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission report into bullying and harassment in the fire services, held back by United Firefighters Union court action.

Premier Daniel Andrews said on Tuesday his government would consider the upper house report in good faith but did not see why reforms needed to wait until the VEOHRC report was released.