Bid to quell CFA fear
Minister addresses Bellarine volunteers over fire changes
LABOR minister Lisa Neville has admitted she originally thought the Andrews Government’s contentious fire service reform plan was “not the way to go”.
The Bellarine MP met with CFA volunteers over the weekend to ease concerns about how the proposed changes could affect local brigades.
“To be frank with you, I probably started this process thinking this was not the way to go, but through that process felt that ultimately this is the model,” Ms Neville said.
Ocean Grove’s will be one of several integrated career/ volunteer stations affected, with volunteers there given the option of working under “joint branding” with the new Fire Rescue Victoria or “moving to other volunteer stations”.
“My sense so far in my conversations with the Ocean Grove team, they absolutely want to stay there, overwhelmingly want to stay there,” Ms Neville said.
She said other Bellarine stations would remain the same.
“As far as I can tell, there will be no change,” she said.
The plan will abolish the Metropolitan Fire Brigade and replace it with the FRV, but Ms Neville said volunteer firefighters would not be unduly affected.
“For the vast majority of volunteer stations in the CFA across the state, nothing changes at all,” she said.
“For those within the FRV region, which will now include the Ocean Grove integrated brigade, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo, and the MFB regions — the changes will mostly be seen at the integrated station itself.”
Ms Neville was at the Wallington fire station on Saturday afternoon with Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley. Emergency Services Minister James Merlino and CFA chief Steve Warrington were at the Belmont CFA station on Saturday morning.
Ms Neville said the changes would enable the Government “to continue to grow the CFA” with better equipment, training and stations.
The move will be accompanied by a $100 million support package “for buildings, equipment and training capacity for the CFA”.
Ms Neville said the legis- lation also “shifts the onus of proof” to make it simpler for all firefighters to claim compensation for fire-related cancers and diseases.
Mr Lapsley said Victoria had 1220 fire brigades and 47 fire stations, which would increase to 82 stations under the FRV plan.
He said CFA brigades would be “co-locating” with the FRV in some instances.
“That CFA bridge over time may elect to be somewhere else,” he said.
But Mr Lapsley said the impact on long-time MFB workers also needed to be considered.
“MFB doesn’t exist after this, so MFB — 125 years of history — there is no more,” he said. “So think of the sensitivities of people worried about change — if you’re in MFB and you’ve been an MFB person all your life, that’s the change”