Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to place on the record of this House my thanks to the firefighters throughout my community and for that matter throughout Australia who keep our communities safe. No matter where you live in Australia your community is protected by firefighters—be they full-time professional firefighters employed by state governments, part-time or more commonly known as retained firefighters, or volunteer firefighters. Each kind of firefighter has a very specific role to play in protecting our communities. On Sunday 19 May I attended the Volunteer Appreciation Day at Doyalson in my electorate on the Central Coast, which included the blessing of the Rural Fire Service fleet and the recognition of the service of volunteers that work for the Rural Fire Service. It was a really appropriate way to end volunteer week and I thank those rural firefighters for the service that they have given to their community, just as I thank the professional firefighters who work each and every day protecting our communities.

Firefighters provide a vital service, a service that saves lives and property. That can only happen if fire crews are located in communities to protect those communities. In recent times, unfortunately, firefighters from the Belmont and Tingira fire stations within my electorate have been taken offline—their stations have been taken offline. And, for a combined loss of greater than 70 hours, those two fire stations have been closed and taken offline whilst the crews go to Swansea Fire Station. There are two issues here: one, there are not enough retained firefighters at Swansea to maintain that station and two, our professional firefighters are being taken across the bridge at Swansea—which has a history of becoming stuck—and leaving those communities unprotected. If the Belmont crew is down at Swansea, it would mean that a fire crew would have to come to Belmont from Tingira Heights, and if that fire crew was fighting a fire at one of the local shopping centres, then fire crews would have to be brought from a lot further away—and we all know that the response time is vitally important. Response time is everything when a fire takes hold. If you cannot get a fire crew there quickly, then that means that your community is at risk. That means that lives are lost.

This cost-cutting practice that is taking place in New South Wales is very foolhardy. It is not the right approach. There are some things that you can cut at a bureaucratic level, but when it comes to the actual services on the ground it really is not good enough. I would like to condemn the New South Wales government for this practice and I do that in the strongest possible terms. By closing these stations, it really is placing at risk the communities that I represent in this parliament. I have had a number of people sign petitions and come and see me about this issue. I believe that the government is putting our communities at risk, simply in order to save a little bit of money on overtime or by not employing more retained or other firefighters.

Even last week both Belmont and Tingira Heights fire stations were taken offline, so whilst I said 70 hours, since then it is well up over the 80 hours. This is not good enough. The people of New South Wales deserve better than that. The people of the electorate of Shortland deserve better than this and the firefighters deserve better than this. They need to know that their government, their employer, is prepared to look after and protect them and employ them in the way that they are trained and qualified to be employed.

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