Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

) ( ): I rise to condemn the union attack, backed by Daniel Andrews, on Geelong and regional volunteer members of the Country Fire Authority. In last week's Geelong Advertiser, a full-page advertisement which was not authorised or authored, headed 'Geelong's outgrown its current fire system', demeaned Geelong's CFA firefighters, claiming Geelong doesn't receive the same professional level of fire response as metro Melbourne. Not only is this unfair; it is dangerous. The advertisement, which had been secretly funded by the union movement, belittled Geelong as having a country structure and stated that the safest and most sensible way forward is to modernise our fire services by creating a single career firefighting and rescue service that looks after the cities like Geelong and all of urban Melbourne equally.

Unfortunately, this is another attempt by Daniel Andrews and the militant United Firefighters Union to bring CFA volunteers to their knees, to break up and destroy CFA volunteerism. It is absolutely terrible what is happening to the CFA in Victoria. Under Labor's proposal, only parts of Geelong are covered by the new fire rescue Victoria zone. So is Labor suggesting that homes in Highton, Dover Heights, Waurn Ponds and Marshall, which are outside this particular zone, are not as well protected as homes in Belmont, Geelong and Corio? These claims are a disgrace. Daniel Andrews's attempts to destroy CFA volunteers are an absolute disgrace. (Time expired)