Firefighters rally in Civic Square ahead of reforms to Fire Service Act
Fire Service members Andrew Taylor and Jeremy Ripper with Labor MP Michelle O’Byrne calling for clarity around reforms to the Fire Service Act.
Transcript
00:00 we're here. It's because we want to support our community. The government of the day must
00:05 also provide the support for us to be able to do that. And that's not what's coming with
00:10 this proposed reform agenda. Let us say up front, we're ready for the reform agenda.
00:16 We need reform. The stuff we've got now is so antiquated it's not funny. It's 40 plus
00:22 years old. So we are fully supportive of the reform agenda. What we're not supportive of
00:28 though is not knowing what that means. And that's where we as volunteer firefighters
00:33 and career firefighters for that matter, and our SES colleagues are at. Let me say Andrew
00:39 Taylor is my name. I'm the local brigade chief for Georgetown. I'm the local unit manager
00:44 for SES. I've been that for 40 years in the fire service in the SES, 23 years as brigade
00:50 chief and 14 years as SES unit manager. I've been the retained brigades fire president
00:57 for the last 23 years. I've never seen anything like this. And that's something that this
01:05 state needs to reflect on. Never have we seen four banners all the same of all the associations,
01:12 the SES association, the UFU on the one placard. This is incredible. There's a very powerful
01:19 message here. And thank you to each and every one of you because we're aligned. There's
01:26 6,000 round figures, volunteers, career firefighters and SES volunteers. We provide an amazing
01:34 service. You all provide an amazing service. As do our families and as do our friends for
01:39 letting us participate the way we do. We need that message to get through to the government.
01:45 We do want the reform. We need the reform. The fire service act is 40 odd years old.
01:52 It's not contemporary. We must have a better piece of legislation. But what must come with
01:59 that is listen to us about what is special about the 6,000 emergency responders. There's
02:06 no other government department that has 6,000 like us in response as an organisation. Let's
02:14 say 5,000 of those, 5,500 of those are volunteers. Tell me another government department that
02:20 has that sort of requirement and that sort of need. Because I don't know of any. And
02:27 it seems to me that we're not getting the message through to the government that we
02:32 expect some different things as a consequence of that.
02:37 I don't know how you take something that everybody supports and end up in a position that's as
02:42 damaging as the one that we have now. Nobody doubts that we have to have a reform of the
02:46 fire and emergency services. Nobody. Everybody came to the table wanting that to be the case.
02:52 Nobody doubts that we need a better funding model because the funding model simply doesn't
02:56 meet the needs and the demands for the fire and SES across our state. Nobody denies that.
03:01 And yet something that should be so positive, should be so good for the services, should
03:06 be so good for our state, has now become an issue where all over the state today people
03:11 are standing up and saying this is not okay. We're not all right with this.
03:15 Now right now in Ulverston and in Hobart there are rallies taking place and the one in Ulverston
03:19 Felix Ellis has turned up to. And I can tell you what he's going to be saying. He's going
03:23 to say we've done review after review. This is about a unified service. This is about
03:30 strategic decision making. This is about command control. This is about ring fencing funding.
03:35 This is about making sure that you can do the job that you need to do.
03:39 Whenever you ask him any of the detail, that's when it turns to custard. That's when it falls
03:44 apart. Because the reality is that the chain of command will not be obvious in the model
03:48 that they're putting forward right now. The decisions about what is right for fire and
03:53 emergency services will not be made by people with experience in fire and emergency services.
03:58 The decision about ring fencing that he talks about, when we asked him questions in estimates,
04:03 it appears that his ring fence has got more holes and gaps than any fence I've ever seen
04:07 because it's going to fund anything that they can put the word emergency to across the entire
04:11 budget. It's not going to be ring fenced. So any additional funding, however that is
04:15 going to be procured, however that is going to be distributed, is not going to be ring
04:19 fenced for the services that the community expects it to.
04:24 There's no pathway out of local government funding into this new model. There's no clarity
04:28 for SES and fire service about where they sit. There's no real commitments on ring fencing.
04:34 And the most important thing is that there's no listening to the people who actually do
04:37 the job. From the people who turn up in front of us today and around the state day by day
04:43 to run towards circumstances that most Tasmanians would flee from, those experts, all the way
04:48 through to the experts who have run fire services and run emergency services for generations.
04:54 We've had fellow fire services chiefs coming out and saying this is wrong, this is dangerous,
05:00 this will actually undermine our fire service.
05:02 My name's Jeremy Repirov, been employed by the fire service for close to 20 years now.
05:07 In that time I've been a firefighter both in the northern region and the north west.
05:11 I've worked in the field in both regions. I've worked at BRU here in the north and I'm
05:16 currently the north east field officer temporarily.
05:19 And I've noticed a lot of change over my time here but in the last eight years there's been
05:25 a lot of massive impact change to me. There seems to be another level of bureaucracy now
05:31 that makes things a lot harder to achieve and it's created a real need for us to do
05:39 more with less.
05:40 In saying that, we're not against change as has been discussed. We need change and all
05:45 strong organisations need good change. But reform for us has to be the right reform.
05:52 So we need to ensure that there is an independent statutory body like the State Fire Commission.
05:58 It's vital.
06:00 We must have clear operational reporting lines to the Minister of the Day, not through the
06:04 Commissioner of Police.
06:09 We must have an adequate sustainable fair funding model for the SES and for the future
06:15 needs of the SES and a modern fire service.
06:19 That funding needs to be ring-fenced so it can be used for TFES operations only.
06:26 And the TFES must have employment power so it can determine its structural needs going
06:31 down the track.
06:33 So I call on the Minister to stop deflecting and put on the table what the Government's
06:38 intentions are for our service.
06:41 We are all very passionate about what we do. We all love our service. And what we do is
06:47 not just a job, it's a calling. We've all answered the call. You've all answered the
06:51 call here today.
06:53 And it's just great to see. So if we keep fighting, like Andrew said, we're going to
06:58 get a win and we're far too important to let this go. The fire service is far too important.
07:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]