Thursday, 30 May 2024

State Emergency Service Manningham unit

Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (17:33): (699) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Emergency Services, and the action that I seek is for the minister to fully fund our SES and its training programs. Vincent Ciardulli, the controller of Manningham SES, wrote to me recently to highlight the impacts his unit is experiencing due to the continued funding shortfalls, especially regarding emergency response driver training and new recruit training. He wrote:

As a Controller I have a responsibility to ensure the unit has the ability to respond to Priority 1 events with the use of light and sirens to expedite travel.

This is known as Emergency Vehicle Response Driving and members must complete an online training module, however due to funding there is no provision of any practical training or assessments being provided to my team members.

To provide myself with more comfort about the safety of members and the public, I am proposing we raise or use savings to fund sending the members on an advanced/defensive driving course.

The provision of such training should be aligned to other agencies given the risk is the same, however the ongoing under-funding of VICSES has seen this gap remain over many years.

As a unit we recruit new members and are required to conduct their initial training (Crew Member Supervised). This requires an additional 2–3 days of weekend training that we must conduct as volunteers. The ongoing lack of funding results in an insufficient number of paid trainers at VICSES to schedule and run this training.

Despite the fact that this government has routinely underfunded our SES, Manningham SES has experienced over the past five years more than double the rescue events, double the events assisting Victoria Police, seven times the amount of ambulance assists, four times the amount of fire services assists and a 40 per cent increase in SES requests for assistance as well as an increase in fundraising efforts, which are 10 times the previous five years. The above figures represent the shared commitment all volunteers at Manningham SES make to serving the community in times of need. As our SES will never hesitate to protect our communities, I hope the minister will not hesitate to protect those who keep us safe.