Thursday, 20 June 2024

Country Fire Authority Skye brigade

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:21): I am pleased to announce that Skye CFA and community members have now received notification that the upgrade to provide activated traffic lights requested at the intersection of Potts and Ballarto roads in Skye, which will allow the CFA trucks to easily exit and access the intersection, will soon be built. We are looking forward to seeing more than just a notification. This project is important to the resources, capacity and response times of Skye CFA and local CFA teams servicing our region.

In 2019 my colleague Chris Crewther, now the member for Mornington, secured $30 million of budgeted funding from the then Liberal–National government, the federal government, and I was very pleased to join Chris Crewther and Senator Hume when we visited the Skye CFA to listen to their concerns and to meet with the local team. We have been advocating for these lights to go ahead. The CFA needs to have the ability to get out and service the local community with their fires, and when we do not actually have roads that are built in such a way that can allow these trucks to move it is incredibly difficult and dangerous for the community. The CFA needs self-sustaining volunteers and volunteer instructors to sustain and build up capability, and they need a sustained investment strategy for vehicle replacement as well. I noticed that at this CFA they still had a truck where you had to sit outside, which is simply not acceptable.