Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) — I am pleased to speak to Mr Rich-Phillips’s motion on establishing this select committee. I am not going to repeat the words that everybody else has spoken today. I will try and make my contribution fairly brief. This motion is in regard to some fundamental reforms to our fire services in Victoria. This issue has been deeply personal and deeply emotional for many people in this house and also certainly for many people in our community. Like all of you, I have received hundreds, if not thousands, of very thoughtful, very personal stories, emails and phone calls about this issue. These essential services and the work that our volunteers do and the work that our paid firefighters do is quite extraordinary.
I have visited fire stations in my region. I have met with many volunteers and I have met with many paid firefighters. There are stories they speak to me about of tragedies that they have had to witness, but they also speak of the wonderful rewarding work that they do when they do save someone’s property or someone’s house. I commend Mr Ramsay for the work that he has done in the past and for the fires that he has assisted with. I do not think I could do some of the work that these volunteers and career firefighters dedicate their time to, but I do believe that we have to change. For our fire services in the 21st century, what we have now will not take us into the future, and we do need to change. I have been on the public record speaking about this. I think we need extra funding for our Country Fire Authority (CFA). I heard Ms Shing speak about a $100 million injection into the CFA in regional areas, and I will be very interested to hear more about that.
That is why I am supporting this motion. One of the comments that I have heard time and time again has been, ‘If Peter Marshall likes it, we don’t like it’ — but no-one can really articulate what that is. What volunteers are mainly articulating to me is this lack of consultation, particularly country volunteer firefighters, who do not feel that they have been brought along in this process. We are talking about some fundamental and significant changes to our fire services and to the future of our fire services. This motion will allow for that consultation to occur — for the voices of those volunteers to be heard. That seems to me to be what they want. But we do need these changes.
I would like to commend Ms Hartland for the work she has done over the years on presumptive rights legislation for both paid firefighters and volunteers. This is very important.
I was out at a fire station in Thomastown and speaking to those paid firefighters there. Some of them had pooled their leave to help one of their colleagues who had cancer. They worked together, and I think it is our duty to protect them and to recognise that they are in a risky business, whether they are volunteers or are paid. So it is very important that we get the presumptive rights legislation through.
A short, sharp review of this bill that would allow for volunteer consultation in particular, I think, would give us an opportunity to hear the good ideas from all of the good people on the ground who have written to me. I would just like to highlight one of those good people, Peter Buur, who wrote to me this week. He is not necessarily opposed to this change but believes that without consultation with the largest stakeholders in this — the 60 000 men and women who tirelessly volunteer to keep Victorians safe 24 hours a day, 365 days per year — this bill should not go ahead. I echo those sentiments from Mr Buur, and I support this motion.
