Hi Guys this is an email that is circulating at the moment please have a good read please click the continue reading to see the email From: Eric Collier Subject: State Election - Emerging Impacts On Volunteer Firefighters Good evening Delegates, I’m writing to make you aware of some disturbing stories coming out of the State election campaign which are likely to impact on CFA volunteers. Election campaigns are not the sort of thing that I would normally bother to write to you about, but I think that all volunteer firefighters need to be aware of these particular issues, as they will have a direct impact, particularly on those of us located in the outer Melbourne metropolitan area. Here are links to two media releases from the Victorian Labor Party this week: https://viclabor.au/media-releases/botched-mine-fire-response-must-never-happen-again/ https://viclabor.au/media-releases/extra-firefighters-and-more-support-under-labor/ The first press release suggests that the response to the Hazelwood Mine fire was “completely botched”, and that firefighters’ lives were put at risk. Labor plans to prevent this happening again by spending $8 million on a new emergency services hub. In addition, they will increase the number of full time firefighters at Morwell and Traralgon Fire Stations. There doesn’t appear to be credible evidence that firefighters lives were at risk. You may recall there was a huge effort put into health monitoring for firefighters, with strict protocols to be followed in the event that issues were found. Indeed, I was told stories about members who were smokers not being allowed down the mine because their health check at the beginning of their shift found high levels of carbon monoxide in their blood. In my opinion, firefighter health was taken very seriously by the incident controllers, and managed well. Neither does there seem to be credible evidence to indicate that additional full-time firefighters would have made a difference. How many additional staff would it have taken to replace the massive response by hundreds of CFA people, both volunteer and paid, and our interstate colleagues? Could we afford to pay this number of people to be available to respond to a rare event, and have them sitting around the rest of the time? The second media release, together with a television “event” staged in conjunction with the UFU, promises the hiring of an additional 350 firefighters for CFA, and 100 for MFB, at an initial cost of $141.3 million (with no mention of the ongoing recurrent funding required). There doesn’t appear to have been consultation with CFA as to the need or otherwise, and it is doubtful that there is evidence demonstrating a need for anything like this number of additional paid firefighters. Further, the quoted cost does not include the capital works required to build and upgrade fire stations to the standard required for paid firefighters, so that will need to be funded from CFA’s existing budget – meaning that it is likely that there will be budget cuts for volunteer fire stations, trucks, PPE and training. The media release includes a comment about the sacking of 164 staff prior to the fire season, implying that this will affect frontline firefighters – it won’t. It is up to the CFA CEO to explain this better, but my understanding is that many limited tenure office-based staff are leaving because their projects, which originated with the Royal Commission, are approaching completion. In addition, Mr Andrews promises a range of other things, including: · Presumptive Cancer legislation for firefighters – but there are rumours that only paid firefighters will benefit. I am trying to find out more, and will advise you further as soon as I hear anything. · A further inquiry into pollution, contamination and unsafe practices at Fiskville, the closure of which seems to be Labor’s goal. · Implementing EMR at all integrated stations. If they are happy to do it, that’s fine, but is there a need? What about adequately funding and staffing the ambulance service so they can do their job and we can do ours? · Re-establishing the Board of Reference to “resolve staffing and station needs”. You may recall that this Board was the subject of VFBV protests under the last Labor Government, because it prevented the CFA and the Chief Officer from performing their statutory roles under the CFA Act. The Board of Reference dictated to CFA how many paid firefighters should be hired – without considering whether there was an actual requirement supported by evidence, and resulting in a loss of funding for volunteer firefighters. · “Examine options for a Career Firefighters Registration Board”. Such a board will not register volunteer firefighters, no matter how well qualified, so what would be the purpose of such a board? Boards and their associated managers, staff and infrastructure don’t come cheap. Labor needs to demonstrate how the benefits would outweigh the costs, why the public should be expected to fund it, and how it will benefit volunteers. · “Honour all agreements” – in my opinion, this most likely relates to the foolish decisions by previous CFA management teams to cave in to pressure from industrial bodies and allow them to dictate to CFA and the Chief Officer how to manage the organisation. Fortunately, following an appeal by CFA to the Federal Court, Australian constitutional law prevailed last January when the unconstitutional clauses of the operational staff EBA and related secret agreements were rendered unenforceable by the Court’s decision. The UFU appealed the decision, but is unlikely to be able to overturn constitutional law – unless a Labor Government orders the CFA to “run dead” on its defence to ensure that the UFU wins, enabling Labor to “honour all agreements”, which apparently includes an agreement with the UFU to eliminate volunteer firefighters from outer metropolitan Melbourne. The Labor Party needs to better explain why they are proposing these things, because there doesn’t appear to be evidence to justify the need and the enormous expenditure required. They also need to explain the likely impact on volunteer firefighters, and why they would plan to get rid of a cost-effective fire-fighting service. Introducing large numbers of paid staff into the outer metro area will probably result in the loss of hundreds, perhaps thousands of volunteers, destroying the surge capacity that District 8 (amongst others) provides so well to major fires across the State whenever we are needed. I don’t think either of the major political parties have covered themselves in glory with their support for CFA volunteers. However the Labor Party’s position on the above issues indicates that they do not value the services provided by volunteer firefighters. In particular, these media releases indicate that the Labor Party does not understand the role that volunteer firefighters play in major fire situations. Without volunteer firefighters, bushfires will not be contained as quickly, resulting in large loss of life and economic damage to Victoria. Labor may well “honour all agreements” with its’ union mates, but at a terrible cost to Victorians in terms of loss of life and property. We may have a very difficult road ahead of us if the Government changes after the election. Please circulate widely and discuss within your brigades, families and elsewhere, and feel free to have a discussion with your local political candidates about this. Regards, Eric Collier President, VFBV District 8 Council
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 23:48:12 +0000
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