Plan to boost female recruits to Victoria’s frontline emergency services fails

New data has revealed the impact of the Andrews Government’s campaign to increase female recruitment rates in our emergency services.

Victoria’s fire services have hired just 15 women in 15 months and police have failed to boost female recruitment rates, despite the Andrews Government launching new campaigns to increase diversity in our emergency services.

New figures obtained by the Herald Sun show there are only 142 women working as career firefighters in the MFB and CFA — well short of the ­government’s target of 400 by 2021.

Of the 149 firefighters who joined the MFB recently, nine were women, while the CFA has hired six female recruits out of 58. It means less than 4 per cent of the MFB’s 2015 firefighters were female.

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Victoria Police fared better, with 6357 applications from women for the academy since January 2017. But this was only 32 per cent of new members — roughly the same level achieved before launching advertisements targeting women.

Victoria Police put 6357 women through the academy since January 2017.

Gender diversity has been a strong theme for the Andrews Government, with both Deputy Premier James Merlino and Minister for Police and Emergency Services Lisa Neville saying they plan to stamp out any “boys’ club” culture.

“Women play a vital role across our police and emergency services, and we continue to encourage them to join up and pursue what is an incredibly rewarding career,” Ms Neville said.

“We know there’s still more to do — that’s why we’ll keep working to ensure a strong representation across all genders, background and beliefs in all of our emergency services.”

Opposition spokesman David Southwick accused the government of playing gender politics. “Daniel Andrews made this announcement to try and boost his credentials when it came to women,” he said. “Now we learn it was just another Labor media stunt with no real results.”

There are only 142 women working as career firefighters in the MFB and the CFA

The MFB said it was “committed to working with our partner agencies to review and improve our recruitment processes to attract the best ­candidates”. A CFA spokesman said: “We remain committed to ­increasing diversity among our operational ranks and are looking at a range of initiatives to support women.”

Victoria Police recruitment and deployment director Commander Andrea McAlpine said the force was committed to ­diversity. “Over the years, we have seen an increase in the number of women wanting to join Victoria Police, however, we want this to continue to grow,” she said.

Ambulance Victoria’s annual report shows 48 per cent of frontline paramedics are women.

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