Wednesday, 3 June 2026

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:06): I move:

That the petition be taken into consideration.

It takes a special kind of incompetence –

Members interjecting.

Nick McGOWAN: Already I hear from those opposite, and I have only had maybe four or five words. It does take a special kind of incompetence to bring together disparate parts of our community. Perhaps for the first time in Victoria’s history we have seen the United Firefighters Union come together with Victoria’s farmers through the Across Victoria Alliance, and, in addition to that, the CFA volunteers group. You might be asking the question: what brings together such a disparate group? Well, the commonality of course is they are all dedicated to not only saving lives but also fighting fires. That is the commonality. What happened here in Victoria over the bushfire season that we just experienced throughout the summer and of course leading up to the Christmas period was nothing short of a spectacular display of incompetence by this government in how they handle our fire services. In fact it is somewhat pa art of their legacy, unfortunately, going forward.

What we have before us today is the sixth-largest – I will repeat, the sixth-largest – petition that has been submitted to this Parliament. I thank the minister for his attendance here today as well. The sixth-largest petition: 12,994 Victorians – farmers, CFA volunteer group and UFU members – proudly coming together and saying enough is enough. We do not have the time today to go through every single problem that this state is littered with with its fire services, unfortunately. But what I can tell you – let me start with one simple one. We perhaps judge a society by the way it treats its workforce, and the way that those opposite treat workers in this state is nothing short of appalling. To have ever at any point in its history referred to themselves in any way as an L-A-B-O-U-R movement is comical, because this lot have made an absolute joke of their history and an absolute joke of their commitment to any workers. In fact I would proffer so much as to say that the true party of the workers is the Liberal Party in this state, in Victoria, right now. Laugh as much as you will, Mr Batchelor, because you will not be laughing in November when you hear from the Victorian people. Those opposite have allowed a situation to arise where they have not paid firefighters – and there are firefighters in the chamber today – a single cent, not CPI, not anything, for five years. These are 4500 workers who day in, day out put their lives on the line, and they do that because they care about their job. They do that because they care about their community. For those opposite to have sat idle while none of those career firefighters have received a single cent in pay rise for five years – 4500 men and women and their families; it goes into the thousands, including corporate staff – is an absolute crime. In fact we ought to legislate against it and hold those opposite accountable for that crime, because it is absolutely sinister.

I am going to conclude my remarks there because I have 2 minutes at the end and I want to give others the opportunity to speak. But I tell you what, there is much more to be said about this, because the other thing the fire services right across the board are also facing is a crisis in their appliances and being horrifically under-resourced. We saw that graphically this week at one station in the western suburbs which has been ignored by this government – neglected, not just ignored, neglected. Tarneit fire station should have two fire trucks. It is month on month the busiest when it comes to emergency medical response callouts, and yet they have one truck and they have been calling now for close to a decade to have two.

Station after station – Caroline Springs. You just need to keep naming these stations and the neglect in the western suburbs – and it does not stop in the west, unfortunately; it spreads right across to the eastern suburbs and right across to our regional and rural areas, where we have both career and volunteer firefighters. Volunteers are no better off either because they have been neglected, and members on our side will speak to that shortly. I have been up to Bendigo myself to see this government’s neglect in the Premier’s own electorate, where she is wasting millions and millions of dollars literally on a station that sits idle and empty while both the volunteer and the career firefighters do not have a fit-for-purpose station to this very day. They should be ashamed of themselves.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (18:10): I rise to take note of the petition today, and I begin by acknowledging the work that all the firefighters, all the volunteers and all the emergency services personnel do to keep our community safe across the state, protecting lives and protecting homes in some of the most horrific conditions that we can ever imagine facing. They do an amazing job day in, day out when they are called, and we thank them for that. Mr McGowan mentioned the horrific fires that we saw in January this year, particularly on 9 January. We had 200 fires start on a single day, akin to Black Saturday levels of fire activity. I think what we saw on that day in terms of the dedication and bravery of those who went to fight those fires was remarkable, and the resilience of the community coming together in very difficult and trying times spoke I think to the true spirit of Victorians. I want to credit everyone involved in the response, the relief and the recovery efforts that we saw from those fires.

This chamber does have an inquiry on foot at the moment inquiring into the summer fires here in Victoria, and that committee has spent some time out listening to communities right across Victoria about the conditions that they faced on that day, about the utter inferno that engulfed many communities and about the devastating impacts that that had. I think that the Parliament is doing its job in looking at those matters, and I will not go into those issues further because there is a report that we have to prepare.

I do want to address some of the inaccuracies in Mr McGowan’s contribution, particularly when it comes to the question of funding. This government has doubled the funding for emergency services and is investing another $2.2 billion to keep Victorians safe, delivering record funding for our fire agencies. This budget continues the investment in stations, in upgrades, in a rolling fleet replacement program in support of the volunteers in our volunteer organisations like the CFA and SES and also in support of career firefighters in FRV. It does include more than $100 million for new CFA tankers. We have also, as part of our investments, contributed $700 million since 2022 towards Triple Zero Victoria to provide more staff, improved systems and greater coordination on the call-taking and dispatch side. That is what backing emergency services looks like.

What we have from the opposition is a policy position that will rip hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars out of emergency services in this state, because when they stand up and say they are going to scrap the tax, when they stand up and say they are going to scrap the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund, what that means is cutting funding to the emergency services that rely on the ESVF, that rely on the funds that that is generating and reinvesting. Every single cent of the ESVF is invested in our emergency services. When the Liberal Party and the National Party stand up and say they are going to scrap the tax, they mean they are going to cut the funding, because cutting funding is what the Liberals do. It is in their DNA. They cut funding to the CFA the last time they were in government, and they have already said they are going to cut funding the next time they get into government through their commitment to scrapping the tax. Mr McGowan stands up and purports that the Liberal Party are the friend of the workers. It is the same Liberal Party that voted against legislation to provide presumptive rights to our firefighters.

I could not think of a more anti-worker act than to vote against legislation designed to support firefighters with cancer caused by the work that they do. We will not be lectured by the Liberal Party about supporting workers when they vote against measures to support sick firefighters. In this debate, maybe some of them could get up and explain why they do not support presumptive rights and why they voted against them. We know the fire seasons are getting longer and more intense and we have got to back our firefighters with more funding, and that is exactly what Labor is doing.

 Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (18:15): I am very pleased to speak to this petition today and want to acknowledge and thank the nearly 13,000 people that signed it. They signed it because they care. They care about our fire services. They care about the funding and the resources, because Victoria is one of the most bushfire-prone places in the world. You would think by now – Labor has had a long time in government – they have had plenty of opportunity to ensure that we have got it all together in Victoria. But no, no, no, no, we are way behind.

I know Mr Batchelor speaks of record funding, but really what we have seen from this government is record waste, record debt and record interest. Just on the waste, I want to share with you a little story about what has happened in Bendigo that I have been informed about. There is a fire station in the middle of Bendigo that was meant to be rebuilt, and that was meant to be commenced in 2020. It was announced by the Labor government in 2019, meant to be starting in 2020. Guess what? Not a thing has been done, but a temporary station has been built just a few kilometres away. It was meant to be repurposed off to different stations and meant to be finished in 2021, but really it was finished in 2022 – and it has sat there vacant. This is over $2.4 million that has been wasted on this building that is just sitting there empty in the Premier’s electorate. I cannot believe that we are in the situation now where promises were made but it is nowhere near completion, and the waste continues. I think under this government it is like saying ‘wedding’ – the price of everything seems to go up.

I know with Fire Rescue Victoria there have been a number of issues. They have mentioned Ballarat. Actually the population in Bendigo is slightly bigger than in Ballarat, and yet Ballarat has two FRV stations, three pumpers and 20 firefighters. Bendigo just has the one station, two pumpers and 12 firefighters, so there is a bit of a disparity there despite it being the Premier’s electorate. They have had problems with broken doors and problems with trucks breaking down.

It is the same when I meet with our CFA volunteers. The conditions that they put up with are quite extraordinary. The fleet is so old, and we have got so many stations – 630 with single-cab tankers. Now that means the volunteers cannot fit into the cab, in the protection; they are exposed and put in often very dangerous situations. We have got over 800 trucks that are now out of date, and we have got volunteers that do not even have hot water or the ability to clean their equipment at the station. And there is a lack of changing rooms. They are very poor conditions. That is what our volunteers put up with.

But what did this government do? ‘Great idea, let’s introduce the emergency services tax, and guess what, we are going to charge volunteers more, particularly farmers that have just seen costs escalate.’ I think so many people are questioning: where is the money going? We see that time and time again. In Melbourne we have had megaprojects blow out under this government – over $50 billion wasted. We have had corruption as well, and that has been estimated at $15 billion – possibly up to $30 billion. Geoffrey Watson, the barrister that looked into that issue, has flagged that, and yet this government does not want to look at that situation. They are refusing to hold a royal commission.

They continue to tax people – I think we have had over 67 new taxes or increased charges now under this government. You would think they would be looking for every opportunity to take the pressure off taxpayers. But no, they keep adding tax, because their debt is out of control and the interest is out of control, and yet there is a massive waste of funds with this corruption. Even with the announcement this week about IBAC powers being expanded, guess what? It is just a working group that is being established. It is not actually going to do any changes until the end of 2027 – again, pushing the problem away, saying, ‘Nothing to see here.’ It has just been absolute chaos under this government. Yet in regional areas, where we need infrastructure – under this government just 12 per cent of new infrastructure funding comes to regional areas. We have 25 per cent of the population, and we need to ensure that we get our fair share of funding so that we can invest in the infrastructure we need in regional areas. But I do want to thank our firies. They do such an incredible job. I am part of the inquiry now into the bushfires, and we have heard a number of them share their stories. But we just so appreciate that they are on the front line doing incredible work to support our communities.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:20): I rise to speak on this petition. Over 13,000 committed Victorians signed this petition. So concerned were they about the state of fire services and other emergency services in this state, that they put pen to paper. This is an extraordinary situation where at the time of an incredible drought and then fires this government saw the need to impose a tax on volunteers. It is called the volunteers levy, for heaven’s sake – the very volunteers who go out and put fires out, who save the community, who protect houses, who protect property, you want to tax to the hilt. You want to tax them out of existence. As I have gone around the country on numerous occasions to many ‘scrap the tax’ rallies I have stood alongside committed career firefighters, volunteer CFA firefighters, council members, Victorian Farmers Federation members, farmers, businesspeople – everybody is there, thousands of them in many cases, right across Victoria. I have even stood alongside the mayor of the City of Yarra Stephen Jolly.

It is not only country people that are concerned about this, because you raised a tax, a 100 per cent increase on every household, every commercial business, but 150 per cent on farmers. Everybody is concerned about this, and what have you done? You cannot protect this state. For a start, you are meant to be doing a whole lot of cool burns, a huge number of them across this state. You have totally failed to protect the environment that you are charged with looking after. It burns to the ground. In some areas the fire has been so intense because of the lack of cool burning that the native vegetation will not regenerate, because you have burnt the topsoil and completely devastated the countryside. So many farmers have been devastated by fires, yet you want to tax firefighters.

This is a petition that actually calls on the government to hold an inquiry. It is fantastic that Mrs Broad is on the inquiry, I think Ms Bath is on that inquiry and Ms Lovell is on that inquiry, and they are doing a fantastic job of holding this government to account, because it fails at every measure to protect the state while taxing individuals to the hilt, taxing them out of existence. So serious were people that farmers actually in many cases committed suicide. It is an appalling state that we are in, in this state, when you want to tax the very people that look after us. As we have heard, these fire trucks are completely out of date. Some of them are 30 years old, an extraordinary situation. Members of the Labor Party would not be driving around in 30-year-old vehicles, I will absolutely bet. We have got a station in my electorate in Armstrong Creek. It is a mesh fence around a fire truck with a padlock to get into it. They promised a fire station in 2018, but guess what, we have got a mesh fence. They are good at supporting the mesh fence industry. But we can never get a fire station where we need it, we cannot get trucks that are up to date and we cannot get proper services and facilities for firefighters. I have been in these sheds.

Tom McIntosh interjected.

Bev McARTHUR: You talk about women over there. You talk about wanting women in the workforce. Let me tell you women in the firefighting services cannot even have a change room. It is an appalling situation. We have got women that want to be firefighters, and you do not want to look after them. You do not want to provide the services they need. You are a disgrace. You cannot look after this state. You waste our money, you tax people to the hilt and you absolutely tread all over the volunteers that want to actually do something for the community. You need to lift your game over there. You have got a very short time to lift your game, Mr McIntosh. You have got till November. I think you are on a road to nowhere. So I support the petitioners that signed this petition – what a wonderful thing.

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:26): Do you know there is a day that I will not forget, and it is interesting that today there are some government members essentially mouthing off and saying that the emergency services tax is good for us. A day that I will never forget is the day that out the front of Parliament, on the steps, thousands and thousands of firefighters, union members, volunteers and farmers gathered and no-one from the government even went out to acknowledge them because they were in here doing a deal with the Greens. That to me is absolutely unbelievable. I guess it is a good time to mention that in the last five years, when we have had five pay rises, they have not had a single one. Our professional firefighters, the people that literally are the first point of call, are there in our darkest hours. They do not just fight fires; they respond to medical emergencies. They are there when ambulances are far away. I wonder how many of us, with all our five pay rises over the last five years, have ever had to put ourselves in one of those situations. And I just want to remind you of that, because when you come in here and act like that, you forget that they are the people that we are here to represent – their views. It is not the job of the community to represent your views and manifest them out there; it is for us to fight for these people.

I had a FRV firefighter in my office in Pakenham this week, and he began to walk me through the age of the trucks and the fact that some of those trucks are so old that they have a shorter lifespan in FRV with paid firefighters than, for instance, in the CFA. I will not have time to go into all of that, but because of their age and the fact that so many of those trucks are out of date, so many stations have to go off line every single day. This is a government that is not providing the minimum.

[NAME AWAITING VERIFICATION]

I will quickly move to the CFA. Before the closure of the native timber industry, one of the things that we on this side were saying, we that live in the country – I know Mr McIntosh represents the country, but he lives in the city – and I do, I live in Bundalaguah, is the people there that are the first on the ground to clear roads, to help clean up, to make sure things are safe were the people that worked in the native timber industry. They are the people that have cleaned up, that have kept the forest managed. But since that has closed down we have lost the workforce and the machinery to clear the roads, leaving the job for these guys so much harder, but also our trucks are so far out of date. My friend John Gala in the recent Dargo fires was out fighting all day, in the fires, in a 35-year-old truck with no air conditioning. Is this the best we can do for the people that protect us?

As I sat with the FRV professional firefighter in my office in Pakenham, he told me story after story about the mental trauma that some of these FRV fighters are going through, about the people they cannot help because the machinery is not up to scratch, and how the people they cannot help leave deeper scars than being right in the midst of the of the fire, literally. I said, ‘Why on earth do you do it?’ He sat there and thought for a minute and said, ‘Well, I would not do anything else. This is my calling in life.’

I commend Mr McGowan for bringing this motion. Not only that, what Mr Batchelor said about him was so unfair. He is a true friend of the firefighters. He is willing to stand up to fight for them. He knows this job inside out, and they know that about him too. So I am glad that this inquiry is underway, and I hope that, whatever this inquiry uncovers, this government is honest enough and brave enough to actually implement the recommendations that we make as part of this inquiry. I commend this petition to the house.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:30): I am pleased to rise in support of this petition and those who have signed it, because they are there to support our fire services, both the CFA and the FRV. This is calling for a select inquiry, but we are actually on the upper house Environment and Planning Committee bushfire 2026 inquiry. We have been around right across the state, from Colac to Natimuk, to Harcourt, to Ruffy and to Alexandra. We have listened to people, and back in Melbourne we have listened to the agencies and to Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria. We have listened to people, and overwhelmingly those people are saying this government has got it wrong – this government has turned its back on those people.

I am going to focus on the volunteers for a moment that serve our community for free. When the pager rings, they go out. There are 800 trucks that now should be considered on the scrap heap. Many of them are single cab. That means they go out, people sit in the front cab and then the rest that need to go out are sitting in the back with a half-moon protector. When they are in the middle of a fire – and I have seen incredible photos and film of CFA volunteers up at Bunyip going in to rescue various people in there – they go through flames. We heard the Treasurer yesterday stand up and make comment about how all this is going to the essential services. Well, it is. It is going to Triple Zero Victoria, it is going to Emergency Management Victoria, it is going to core government services, and the actual CFA and FRV are getting this amount. If you look at the pie, it is a small wedge of the pie. So when this government says, ‘We’re serving the community,’ they are serving their own self-interest with a debt that is going to hit shy of $200 billion in a few years.

Yet we go out to the community, and we hear from people in Ruffy. You go out and talk to those volunteers in Ruffy. They were calling for help, and they were told, ‘No, sorry, we haven’t got enough strike team available for you,’ or whatever. They were asking for help, and this government could not respond. Everybody out there, whether they are volunteer or paid, on the fireground is trying to do their best, but this government is not equipping our fire services or our SES with the tools they need to do their job. We support them. They put themselves in danger, and yet this government is not supporting them. What we also know is that they want to scrap that tax. Go out there into the real world. In fact very soon, on 14 June, there is a ‘scrap the tax’ rally in the Premier’s own home town. I know Andrew Lethlean will be there, Bev – Mrs McArthur – will be there, our shadow minister will be there. We will have a great force of people who actually care and want to do something about this.

Indeed I want to make one more comment. We heard from across the board about firebreaks. We heard across the board that there are not enough planned fuel reduction burns. We heard it way down in Colac, and we heard it over in Ruffy and Alexandra. We heard that there are not enough preparatory burns being done, and this government needs to get on board and make that happen to make Victorians and our communities safer.

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:34): I want to thank my colleagues for their contributions tonight and in particular for the vision they have given to their constituents. I also want to thank those on the crossbench who do support common sense and do support firefighters right across Victoria. I also want to take up very briefly, because it is telling, I believe, that the government’s lead spokesperson and chair of the inquiry that this petition has in large part brought about did not even have the decency to stay in the chamber for the entire debate. That speaks volumes. In addition to that –

Tom McIntosh interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: It was outrageous that you were not here. It was disgraceful. If you had any decency, you would have stayed here for the whole debate, but you did not. In addition to that, Mr McIntosh – I will take up your interjection – for you to live here in Melbourne is all good and well, but then for you to claim during that debate that out east you have got lots of fire appliances – go out to Moe for a moment. Go out to Moe and the Fire Rescue Victoria station and you will know that the FRV station there is a petrol station. You should be ashamed of yourself. It is a petrol station. Go out and visit them. You have probably never visited your constituency ever. You do not even know what you are talking about. You have no idea what is happening there.

Members interjecting.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Mr McGowan, Mr McIntosh – the Macs. The question is: that the Council take note of the report. All of that opinion say aye, to contrary no. I believe the ayes have it.

Nick McGOWAN: On a point of order, President, sorry, I still have a minute to go.

The PRESIDENT: Oh, sorry. When you sat down, I thought it was the end.

Nick McGOWAN: No, I thought you were making a point.

Enver Erdogan: On a point of order, President, Mr McGowan was pointing. Can we just have no pointing, please, in the chamber. It is unparliamentary.

Renee Heath: On the point of order, President, Mr McIntosh was offending the standing orders in multiple different areas. The first one was he was reflecting on a member individually, the second one was he was interjecting and the third one was he was pointing.

The PRESIDENT: Yes, and I called Mr McIntosh and Mr McGowan to order. Then when Mr McGowan sat down, I made a mistake then and I thought he was finished, so I will own that. If we can put on – if there were 38 seconds, Mr McGowan, sorry I denied you that. Carry on.

Nick McGOWAN: It is important to set the record straight here before we finish this today. In this government, the only minister in the entire Public Accounts and Estimates Committee process not to actually share with the public the budget of the SES, the CFA and Fire Rescue Victoria was Minister Ward from the other place. For those opposite and the lead speaker for the government tonight to somehow claim that those budgets have never been better and they have never been better funded is an absolute lie. It is that simple. For those opposite to claim in some way –

Ryan Batchelor: On a point of order, President, Mr McGowan accused me of telling a lie in my contribution. That is unparliamentary, and I ask him to withdraw it.

The PRESIDENT: If that was directed at Mr Batchelor, I think it should be withdrawn.

Nick McGOWAN: Withdrawn.

The PRESIDENT: Thank you. You have got 7 seconds.

Nick McGOWAN: In my 10 seconds, let me conclude by thanking the Victoria alliance, the CFA Volunteers Group, all the members of the UFU and every firefighter in Victoria for their contribution to this inquiry.

Motion agreed to.