Seeing red on bush firey blue card bid

THE Queensland Government and Rural Fire Service have decided that rural fire brigade volunteer members’ “usual activities” include providing “health, counselling and support services to children” and so they require a blue card.

I would say that this would be a very unusual activity for a rural fire brigade member.

There have already been 5000 volunteers removed and the Queensland Government and the Rural Fire Service blue card experiment can only be described as a waste of taxpayers’ money and a complete failure with the potential loss of another 5000 volunteers.

The Rural Fire Service and Government have stated that this loss will have minimal impact on the response of the Rural Fire Service to fires.

I do not know what sort of creative accounting is used but the Government and Rural Fire Service are dreaming.

It will take years to recover if it recovers at all. There are larger and more frequent fires that are supposed to be coming because of climate change and we will have fewer volunteers.

The millions of taxpayers’ dollars spent on this experiment would have been better spent on supplying more rural fire trucks. But I suppose with fewer volunteers they will not need as many rural fire trucks.

It is interesting that the NSW volunteer rural firefighters’ numbers have increased by 8000 since last year and they do not require a blue card.

WAYNE KROGH,

Alligator Creek.