Tuesday, 1 April 2025

State Emergency Service

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (19:05): (1093) My adjournment matter for this evening is for the Minister for Emergency Services, and the action I seek is for the minister to initiate a genuine, independent inquiry into allegations of bullying and harassment of volunteers in the Victoria State Emergency Service.

The minister will be aware of this because I know it has been examined in quite a lot of detail by a journalist, Ben Silvester, in ACM newspapers and by a number of other very passionate and interested SES volunteers who have raised these concerns. There are concerns that there is a culture of bullying, gaslighting and belittling within parts of the organisation, particularly for volunteers who raise particular issues or make complaints, some of them stemming originally from complaints about SES trucks that had to be taken out of service, and that is allegedly still continuing.

According to Mr Silvester’s articles earlier in the year, more than a dozen volunteers had come forward after the first stories revealed internal concerns about mental health support and blacklisting of members within the organisation. There have been a series of articles, including one today, that highlighted that the Lismore unit, which is now down to apparently only two members, was unable to actually turn out to a car accident last week involving an elderly man because there is literally just the two of them there, and this is a concern.

I want to read out a couple of paragraphs from one of Ben Silvester’s articles earlier in the year:

A Melbourne-based volunteer also said they had been subjected to a campaign of “passive bullying” so destructive they had lost their job and been driven to the brink of homelessness.

Others described “horrific” verbal abuse and manipulation that left them no choice but to leave a service they had dedicated most, if not all, of their adult lives to. All of these volunteers said management – some of the more than 150 paid staff within the SES – either didn’t investigate and take the issues seriously, or were an active participant in the bullying.

This came from a number of volunteers right around the state, in regional and in metropolitan areas, and all of the ones that were quoted in that particular article are at least 15-year veterans.

I cannot provide any veracity to the statements, but clearly people are feeling this way. I have met with some of the volunteers, who are very concerned about the culture in the SES. That is why I think it is important that the minister undertake an inquiry of some sort that is not simply her asking the SES for an explanation or a response, which I know she has done, but actually getting an independent inquiry going into whether these allegations are true, and more particularly, if they are, to address them and make sure that this does not continue to occur for our volunteers.