Wednesday, 7 February 2024

Country Fire Authority Wooragee station

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:54): (685) My matter is for the Minister for Emergency Services, and the action that I seek is for her to visit the Wooragee CFA to fully appreciate the brigade’s desperate need for a new fit-for-purpose fire station. Wooragee volunteers were the last in the line of defence in major bushfire campaigns in 2003, 2006 and 2009, and yet their needs continue to be ignored. This is a brigade that last year celebrated 95 years of service to its community. This is a brigade that has had neighbouring land gifted to it for a new shed. This is a brigade that has been the number one priority for district 24 for several years only to be overlooked in successive budgets. This is a project the minister agreed was a priority in 2020.

The current sheds are a disgrace. One dates back to 1927 and the other is a 30-year-old Zincalume construction. The brigade uses a makeshift meeting room in the old shed after previously being forced to have open-air meetings on the driveway. Adding insult to injury is the CFA’s push for sanitary bins in toilets. The brigade received a detailed explanation of the rollout just before Christmas, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the only toilets in the area are a shared facility with the local community. These toilets are now subject to increased usage as part of a newly created bike trail connecting popular tourist destinations Beechworth and Yackandandah.

The Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 requires employers to, so far as is reasonably practicable, provide adequate facilities for the welfare of employees at any workplace under their management and control. I think it is reasonable to expect that adequate facilities might be a dedicated toilet. That act is designed for employees, but for all intents and purposes these volunteers are employees who just do not get paid. And by way of precedent, those volunteers were considered employees when the COVID vaccination was deemed mandatory for their turnout at training or fires.

In this place we talk about equality and inclusion. We want more women in the CFA, and yet it is the one-percenters like this that continue to be the barrier. My colleague in the Assembly the member for Benambra has been lobbying for this upgrade since 2018. It is a $1.5 million spend – about 0.004 per cent of what is the latest budget estimate for the Suburban Rail Loop. Wooragee is part of the Northern Victoria electorate and therefore part of the minister’s own electorate – the electorate we share. I hope the minister can find the time to visit CFA volunteers at Wooragee and see the situation firsthand. Following that, perhaps even without it, the minister should ensure that the upgrade of the Wooragee CFA shed – (Time expired)