United Firefighter Union of Australia call on the major parties and candidates to make commitments to community Safety, Stability and Integrity of the State Fire Commission (SFC).

UFUA are calling on the parties to commit to upgrading Heavy Pumper Fire Trucks, additional career firefighters to assist volunteer brigades, Infrastructure upgrades and Equipment.

To date, during this election campaign there has been no commitments from either major party towards Tasmanian Fire Service (TFS).

The Liberal party have been pork barrelling into the Police service under the banner of Crime Reduction and Community Safety.

Whoever forms government after this election needs to ensure the relevant minister doesn’t do the same as the incumbent minister. That is, only focus on one part of their departmental responsibility.

The funding for the SFC is derived from Rates, MAIB and Insurance levies, specifically for fire incidents not from consolidated revenue.

A 2016 parliamentary enquiry found that the cost of funding the SES had been moved from Police & Emergency services revenue to the SFC since 2014. This has drained the SFC cash flow by an average of 2.6 million per year.

This has meant that TFS has not been able to carry out the scheduled replacement or upgrades of its equipment or infrastructure.

TFS receive approximately $200 000 a year specifically for the training and equipment associated with Road Crash Rescue kits (RCR).

Quotes attributable to UFUA Senior Industrial Organiser Leigh Hills

“Operational Road Crash Rescue equipment is being used off vehicles for training due to not having any training kits.”

“Firefighters have had to pack up operational equipment in the middle of training to respond to actual serious Road Crash Rescue incidents in the middle of training on a number of occasions.”

“TFS management admitted they cannot account for the RCR money, other than it has gone into the broader budget. That money is not specifically accounted for as it should be. ”

“The parliamentary enquiry recommended that the SFC be fully reimbursed for the cost of the SES from 2014 – 2017, this has not been committed too.”

“The enquiry also recommended that Fuel Reduction Programme should be directly funded from government consolidated revenue”

“Not having fully functional, insufficient equipment and resources may cause a significant delay in response times, putting the community at risk. This is clearly unacceptable. ”
Leigh Hills UFUA –TAS Branch