Rural volunteers set to lose paid positions under cost-cutting

NEWMAN Government defends moves to cut "back room staff" in the QFRS that rural firefighters fear could affect their ability to tackle bush fires.

Bushfire

THE State Government has defended moves to cut "back room staff" in the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service that rural firefighters fear could affect their ability to tackle bush fires.

Following on from The Courier-Mail report that paid staff who organise volunteers were in the firing line, Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney and Police and Community Safety Minister Jack Dempsey said there had been extraordinary growth in areas such as compliance and education.

"We want rural firefighter volunteers to have more trucks and less bureaucrats and that's what it's about," said Mr Seeney.

"Asking those questions makes some of those bureaucrats uncomfortable."

Mr Dempsey said he wanted to make sure that frontline officers were not "lumbered with the amount of bureaucracy and red tape just to do their job".

"But I can assure the people of Queensland we're looking at the corporate, and the back of house side before any other cuts...particularly in the areas of education and the bureaucracy involved in the compliance of the administration," Mr Dempsey said.

"What we've seen is those numbers go from approximately 30 officers up to 75 officers in one particular area, and we've also seen an increase of over 100 to 150 education officers."

He insisted high standards would be maintained regardless of the cuts being made.

Mr Seeney said it was about "getting the balance right".

"It's about making sure the right amount of money ends up at the frontline service, and I would suggest that hasn't happened in recent years," said the Deputy Premier.

The Newman Government is targeting the handful of paid staff who look after the state's 35,000 rural fire volunteers for job cuts.

It is also yet to come up with a promised plan to extend funding for about a dozen bushfire mitigation and education officers created by the Bligh government after Victoria's royal commission into that state's fires of 2009.

Of the 20 or so civilian staff who deal with the training, marketing, promotional and legal needs of volunteers, none is designated "frontline" staff. That means they have no protection from job cuts under the definitions being used by the new administration.

An insider told The Courier-Mail several meetings had been held in recent weeks where a "human resources woman" had addressed staff to talk about redundancies.

"A woman from Government came in and talked about voluntary redundancy," the insider said. "We've all been told to look for other jobs.

"She was telling us how much more work we were going to have to do if the person next to us took a redundancy.

"There were a couple of meetings last week.

"Morale in there is terrible. It will filter down, I think.

"The volunteers don't know what's happening. Who will then look after the volunteers? They can't look after themselves."

The Bligh government recruited about 15 full-time mitigation and education officers in Queensland as part of a response to the findings of the royal commission into the Black Saturday 2009 Victorian fires.

In April, Emergency Services Minister Jack Dempsey extended their funding for six months and promised to look for a long-term funding solution.

Minister Dempsey said on Friday he wanted to "empower" rural firies but did not provide details.

"In the Budget to be revealed on September 11, the Government will be announcing significant funding on new firefighting infrastructure," he said.

"As for other measures, such as staffing levels, these are still being finalised and will be revealed in the Budget."

He said he had asked the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service to find ways to "divert funding from office and management functions and back into frontline services".