To all SES Volunteers:
Please take into account the following paragraph from a very recent article by the United firefighters Union when making your legislative review submissions
This is what was in the UFU first paragraph of the article:
“Around the nation we are witnessing Government attacks on the wages and conditions of Firefighters. This is unacceptable – and short sighted. The work that Firefighters do to protect our communities across Australia should not be subject to penny pinching or the latest administrative management fad-generic management. Officers in our Rank Structure are relied upon by Firefighters as having specific Fire and Rescue and Bushfire competencies – lateral entry so called “emergency” service people from civilian volunteer backgrounds like the SES do not cut the mustard operationally and are a risk to our personnel who are trained and experienced across a range of specific competencies.”
This is all the more reason for the SES to be a separate department under the legislation. You can draw your own conclusions from this paragraph on what the firefighters want and do not want. For example they do not want lateral entry into the Fire and Emergency Services organisation (lateral entry in this context is direct entry without starting from the ground up as a firefighter etc)
Now is the time (you only have 1 week left ) to make your submissions to DFES on what you would like to see in the new legislation, what you don’t like now and what improvements could be made for SES Volunteers and the SES of the future.
Article by Gordon Hall
SESVA Secretary
