Tuesday, 20 September 2022

COVID-19 vaccination

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (18:19): (2138) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Emergency Services. Vaccine mandates across Victoria are still causing many people and many organisations a great deal of hardship. In the last few weeks my office has been contacted a number of times regarding vaccine requirements around volunteer emergency services. Many volunteers have been locked out of these organisations and continue to be excluded to the detriment of regional Victoria. I spoke at length with two CFA volunteers in north-east Victoria regarding their circumstances. Both served during the Black Summer fires of 2019–20, both in New South Wales and in the Alpine shire. Both were eligible for the National Emergency Medal for their extended service through the Black Summer fires. Medal ceremonies were held in Wodonga and Bright at the end of July. Unfortunately, due to them not disclosing their vaccine status to the CFA, they were not permitted to attend this ceremony to be presented with their medals as CFA firefighters. However, they were permitted to attend the ceremony as members of the public to watch their comrades being presented with their medals.

The National Emergency Medal is a formal recognition that Australia appreciates the efforts and contributions of CFA members during the 2019–20 bushfire crisis. I am a little embarrassed myself that I qualified for this medal. I was only fighting fires that summer for a short time, unlike many who spent months in multiple deployments with all the toll that took. Presentation of this medal recognises sacrifice and service, and it is a great shame these volunteers were excluded. After being excluded for the last year and a half, they are now being allowed to respond to 000 emergency calls under certain circumstances, but they are still not permitted to attend training, brigade meetings or functions or to provide peer-to-peer counselling. Without attending required training, their certification will lapse and they will again be excluded from attending emergencies.

I was also contacted by a constituent stating that in the north-east region all new or present members of the SES need to be fully vaccinated to participate. In regional areas of Victoria our emergency services, including the CFA and the SES, are essential to our communities during times of crisis, whether that be catastrophic bushfire seasons, flooding or storm events or attending motor vehicle accidents. Our CFA and SES volunteers are often first on site and the people we look to for guidance and reassurance. They help our communities prepare for disaster and are the people we look for when things go bad.

Volunteer rates in Australia show a significant drop from 36.2 per cent in 2010 to 28.8 per cent in 2019. We need to do everything we can to attract and keep volunteers, not make it harder. I am baffled as to why we still have these mandates in place for volunteers. They make absolutely no sense and have no scientific backing to support them. Minister, the action I seek is for you to remove all vaccination requirements from the CFA and SES volunteers in order to ensure regional Victoria will have enough trained volunteers to manage the upcoming bushfire season and other emergencies.