Tuesday, 4 February 2025

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (18:36): (1364) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Emergency Services, and the action that I seek is for her to organise a visit to a VICSES unit or a CFA brigade which has received a Victorian emergency services equipment program grant. Our new Minister for Emergency Services in the other place Vicki Ward has already started to fill the big shoes left behind by the former minister, and I am looking forward to working more with her as parliamentary secretary. The new minister has already visited an impressive number of emergency services stations and brigades and sites, but VESEP grant recipients were at the front of my mind over the summer break as I saw the positive impacts that these grants have on local communities. VESEP, which stands for the Victorian emergency services equipment program, supports emergency services organisations like the CFA and the VICSES to protect their communities during bushfires and other emergencies. Of course all Victorians know that our CFA and VICSES volunteers are invaluable, but this has really been driven home for me over the last few weeks as our CFA volunteers across the state have come together to protect communities in the Grampians, the Otways, Little Desert and throughout the state’s west. VICSES volunteers have also responded to damage caused by extreme weather events, including this week’s storms. So to all those VICSES volunteers that are out there: thank you so very much for helping out.

I have been particularly grateful for the CFA’s tireless contributions to their communities recently and have been spending a lot of my spare time with a new mate, a CFA volunteer, who is so dedicated that he has become the secretary of his local brigade. So in the course of all of our conversations we have had a good chance to know and understand the very many sacrifices that our volunteers make, and I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that. So for all of the CFA volunteers can I just acknowledge and thank you for the sacrifice that you make to not only yourselves but also your families; your families are in this as well, missing out on celebrations and festivities, holidays and breaks, and I am so grateful for all that you do. I know that he certainly misses out on the opportunity to serve his community whilst being out there in some really, really tough times out in regional Victoria. Having opportunities like this to see the dedicated CFA volunteers firsthand has really reinforced my pride in being part of a government which supports its emergency services through schemes like VESEP, and since my appointment as the Parliamentary Secretary for Emergency Services I have also represented the now former minister, I have got to say, on visits to other CFA and VICSES stations.

Generally these visits are to commemorate other forms of funding secured by the minister, but on almost every visit, I have got to tell you, I have been told by volunteers about the impact of these grants on their unit or on their brigade or even on their esteem as a unit. So tonight I am asking the minister to visit another grant recipient to see more of the positive community outcomes that she will continue to facilitate through her work.