Firefighters last week protested outside a Liberal Party post-budget dinner at a Williamstown yacht club, concerned there are not enough CFA and MFB frontline staff to ensure public safety.
On February 9, as fires burned at Morwell and parts of outer Melbourne, there were times metropolitan Melbourne was left with five fire trucks for emergency responses.
United Firefighters Union organiser Dan Hunt said MFB members from Altona, Newport and other stations chanted as politicians entered Thursday night’s function, hoping for a response from western suburbs upper house MPs Andrew Elsbury and Bernie Finn.
“I think they were pretty careful not to look at the firefighters and just drove on in,” Mr Hunt said.
He said despite the fire services levy doubling to more than $600 million, the government had failed to deliver an extra 342 CFA firefighters as promised after the 2009 bushfires or 100 MFB firefighters promised in 2010.
“The government agreed to an additional 100 MFB firefighters in 2010 and has not delivered on any of those,” Mr Hunt said. “As of now, 180 of the CFA ones have been implemented and there’s no time frame for implementing the future ones, which is a bit shocking, especially with the events of the Hazelwood mine fire.”
During the Hazelwood fire, CFA and MFB firefighters worked shifts of up to 18 hours and the government was forced to hire interstate firefighters, Mr Hunt said.
“CFA and MFB people would have been going to Hazelwood, leaving their stations empty,” he said.
While not addressing the issue of firefighter numbers, Mr Elsbury said since coming to the office in 2010, the Coalition government had provided the CFA with more than $2.29 billion and MFB more than $1.45 billion.
“The 2014-15 budget for the CFA is $457 million, which is $58 million more than under the last Labor budget,” he said.
“The 2014-15 budget for MFB is $326 million, which is $39 million more than under the last Labor budget.
“This record investment highlights the Coalition government’s strong commitment to our fire services and recognises the critical role our career and volunteer firefighters play in keeping Victorians safe.”
