SES Volunteer's Association of Western Australia Incorporated

“Together we can; Together we will”

24/09/2018 – Hon Colin de Grussa call for changes to DFES training

Hon Colin de Grussa call for changes to DFES training and moved the following motion in Parliament.

HON COLIN de GRUSSA (Agricultural):
Without notice: I move —
That this house calls on the state government to immediately review emergency services training with a view to —
(1) provide nationally accredited and recognised training to emergency service volunteers and recognising prior learning of volunteers;
(2) ensure localised and regular delivery of this training to regional volunteers; and
(3) ensure training packages are developed in consultation with each of the volunteer emergency service associations.

This motion is reasonably self-explanatory. Obviously when we talk about emergency services, it is important that our services are adequately trained and that training is adequately available to people no matter where they are based or live, no matter what service they are in.

From my perspective, I bring this motion to the house for consideration to reflect on some of the meetings I have had around the state with various emergency organisations and to look at some of the issues that they have raised with me about training, to try to see if we can find a way to improve things for them and to see what is happening in that space within government.

Every year as we head into the bushfire, cyclone or storm season, we are constantly told, rightly, that we as a community need to be ready for those events. We need to prepare our homes, have our bushfire plans, to tie down trampolines when the big winds come and that sort of thing.

I think that the community is well aware of what those needs are. In addition, our emergency services have to be adequately prepared—that is, in terms of equipment and people.

Given that most of our emergency services are volunteers, it is important that we have enough volunteers in the services, and part of that is having adequate training. Adequate training not only ensures that those volunteers have the right skillset to do the job, but also is a  good way to attract people in the first place to join volunteer organisations, which are desperately crying out for new volunteers.

Read the full speech.  This is a large documents so the SESVA has highlighted the section which are of most interest to SES Volunteers.

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