I would be surprised if everyone reading this hasn’t been
tuned in to the big issue that has dominated much of the discussion throughout the CFA and Victorian fires services over the past month – that being the Victorian Government’s proposed legislation to restructure Victoria’s fire services.
Related to
this, and in our view inappropriately linked in the same legislation, was a proposed legislation for presumptive rights compensation for firefighters.
Members will be aware that the legislation did not get passed in the Victorian Upper House and the
decision was made to refer it to a Parliamentary Select Committee. The Select Committee has been formed with extremely tight time frames with submissions invited and due by 7 July, then a quick round of public hearings and the date of 8 August set for the committee to report its findings.
Volunteers across Victoria have raised their concerns with VFBV and many of you have been actively writing to and speaking with your local MPs and other decision makers to make them aware of your local concerns. This conversation is extremely important and I encourage you to continue very active dialogue and communication with your local MPs and all Victorian Upper House MPs who will ultimately decide the fate of CFA once the Select
Committee hands the issue back to parliament for decision on next steps. VFBV will continue to be actively involved in this discussion but your local energy and conversations with the MPs really makes all the difference.
I want to congratulate and
thank volunteers and others outside CFA who have helped achieve a closer scrutiny of this flawed legislation before a decision is made. Keep up the good work.
Many of us have been extremely busy meeting with MPs and decision makers; and
discussing/preparing submissions to the Select Committee in the two weeks leading up to 7 July. There has been unprecedented conversation throughout our VFBV networks, District Councils and State Council and VFBV has made a formal submission to the committee incorporating the extensive input received from volunteers across the state. Thank you again for this.
On the eve of this edition going to print VFBV has just come out of our public hearing and presentation to the Select Committee. We were called at short notice to attend a hearing on 7 July. VFBV and I think it gave us a good opportunity to reinforce some key points. VFBV was represented at this hearing by President Nev Jones, Adam Barnett and
myself.
It is impossible to cover all of the issues raised at the hearing in this short space but a snapshot of some of the key issues is captured below. You can visit the VFBV website to access a full copy of the VFBV submission. At a summary level
we were able to reinforce our dissatisfaction with the complete lack of consultation prior to the legislation being tabled in Parliament and also our huge disappointment that the proposed legislation immorally linked the two totally separate issues - firefighter cancer presumptive rights compensation and the proposed restructuring of Victoria’s fire services. We also raised our concern with the presumptive legislation aspects which are NOT the same as the well regarded QLD model and DO NOT treat
volunteers and paid staff equally.
We reinforced to the committee that volunteers interests are to ensure we get this right and to ensure the motivation to make changes is driven by a desire for an outcome that is in the best interest of the
community; is transparent and is workable and is not just to serve a hidden industrial or EBA agenda.
We were able to explain to the committee that experience and reviews have shown us again and again that the best approach to public safety is to
embed public safety ethos and practice in local communities. And that the CFA community based model, where emergency service volunteers and paid staff work in a fully integrated manner and where volunteers are empowered, responsible and valued based on their training and experience (not pay status), for both local service delivery and major incident management roles, is a best practice model regarded world-wide.
We emphasised our concern that the CFA model is being dismantled, and dismantled for the wrong reasons. A model recognised as vital to providing Victoria, one of the most fire prone areas in the world, with the capacity and capability to deal not only with local service demand but also to have
an ability to deal with major disasters when these occur.
We explained how every CFA brigade will be impacted because the proposal carves out all of the operational middle management, field support and brigade support roles. We outlined the problems caused by the proposal to strip these people out of CFA, transfer their employment to FRV under work conditions and an EBA negotiated by FRV, and then second them back to CFA under arrangements that mean CFA Chief Officer
will not have adequate autonomy, authority and full control of this vital component of the CFA workforce.
We explained to the committee that no-one is saying there isn’t going to be a need to grow and supplement current CFA capacity as urban service demand increases, and there may well be a need for more paid firefighters.
As usual, this should be driven by operational evidence and need identified by the Chief Officer, and not by any other
agenda. Of course the fire services need to modernise and we pointed out the fire services have done, and continue to run a program of continuous improvement to ensure our communities receive the best service they can. Of course there may be communities where the service demand comes to exceed the capacity of volunteers, and therefore volunteers may need to be supplemented (not replaced) with paid staff at these locations. And when this happens there should be a range of options looked at
including building the volunteer capacity; prevention activities to reduce fire activity in the first place; reduce false alarms and nuisance calls; providing non operational support to reduce workload; and supplement brigades with paid fire fighters so ‘together’ with the volunteers, there is the capacity to meet the community needs.
We explained in detail to the committee that the principle of supplementing not replacing volunteers is this way you get to sustain the
volunteer capacity and add the paid firefighter or other support capacity you need, keeping up with community demand and keeping all of the other benefits of active volunteerism.
And for some on the committee who didn’t seem to know this already we were able to explain the fact that this model ALREADY EXISTS – it is the current CFA model. The capacity to add additional paid firefighters to CFA brigades where service demand requires it is already there in the CFA
legislation; it already happens; and continuously over the past years there are CFA brigades being transitioned from volunteer only to volunteer/paid integrated brigades. To say that this legislation is required to enable Victoria to service growing urban areas is not correct.
I think the committee now has some very solid information at their disposal to be convinced that you don’t need to dismantle CFA to grow capacity to meet urban growth. You don’t need to dismantle
CFA to continually evolve and modernise the fire services.
The proposed restructure is not a modernisation of the fire services but a backward step, and energy should instead be focused on improving the cultures of the respective agencies and ensuring other agenda’s don’t prevent or restrict the support that volunteers need.
The Select Committee will continue their work over the coming weeks so stay tuned, keep up your active input and
conversations and once again thank you for being an active part of the volunteer voice on this vitally important matter.
