Fire Rescue Victoria costs blow out to $1.4 billion

Fire service costs have blown out to $1.4 billion, as the Andrews government tries to hide the latest FRV and CFA annual reports.

The CFA has lost 20 per cent of its volunteers as the Andrews Government hands more territory to career firefighters, blowing out fire service costs. Picture: Christopher Chan.

The cost of funding Victoria’s fire and emergency services has blown out from $236 million to $2.53 billion over the past decade, based on departmental performance measures compiled by the Victorian Auditor General’s Office.

Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes’ office said the increase “can be attributed to several factors and was not solely down to implementing our Fire Services Reform”, such as the Opposition’s 2013-14 fire services property levy reform, bushfire recovery and some Covid-related costs.

But by far the biggest blowout has been in the cost of funding fire services, with the combined budgets of Fire Rescue Victoria and the CFA skyrocketing from $720m in 2010-11 to $1.4 billion in 2020-21.

FRV was formed after a five-year battle in which it took control of 38 CFA stations and all its career firefighters to merge with the MFB, angering thousands of volunteers and forcing the resignation of former Emergency Services Minister the late Jane Garrett, plus CFA board and executives.

Since then the CFA has been bleeding volunteers.

The latest Department of Justice and Community Safety records show the number of emergency service operational volunteers under its control, the vast majority of whom are in the CFA, has slumped from 41,557 in 2013-14 to 32,949 today.

At the same time the cost of employing career firefighters has soared under successive enterprise agreements that the MFB, CFA and now FRV have drafted with the powerful United Firefighters Union, under the supervision of the Andrews government.

FRV’s Operational Employees Interim Enterprise Agreement 2020 states the service is required to meet the previous obligations of the MFB to employ an additional 100 firefighters, plus the CFA’s “prior agreement to employ an additional 342 career firefighters together with its agreement to employ a further additional 350 career firefighters”.

FRV is set to employ even more career firefighters as the UFU tries to expand its territory, launching a slick new Ready for Anything campaign last year, which warns most regional Victorians in CFA zones they are “NOT located in an area that is protected by FRV professional career firefighters”.

The Andrews government has already appointed a Fire District Review Panel to assess whether FRV’s boundary should be expanded in 2024.

As previously reported FRV’s 3570 career firefighters, plus 590 support staff, already cost an average of $181,730 each to employ in 2020-21 and racked up a $71.8 million overtime bill, equal to $20,112 each.

But just how much more they cost Victorian taxpayers over the 2021-22 financial year remains a mystery, following the Andrews government’s shelving of more than 200 departmental and agency annual reports – including FRV’s - until after the November 26 state election.

Premier Daniel Andrews and his ministers did the same thing in the lead-up to the 2018 state election, when about a third of their departmental and government-owned agency reports were not released – including fire services’ reports.

Opposition emergency services spokesman Brad Battin said “fire Services in Victoria have nearly doubled in the cost to operate since Labor was elected in 2014, yet the trucks are older, the response times are hidden and now Labor hide the annual report to stop scrutiny”.

“Daniel Andrews spends more money for worse outcomes, and again, like he did in 2018, he is preventing the CFA and FRV annual reports being made public so he can hide how bad things are, and how underprepared for another fire season Victoria is.”

When asked if the annual reports would be released before the election Treasure Tim Pallas’ office said they would “be tabled (with parliament) in compliance with the Financial Management Act”.

However parliament sat for the last time before the election last week, which means under the Act the reports do not have to be tabled until “the first sitting day of that House after 31 October” – sometime after the election.

Opposition Treasury spokesman David Davis said Mr Andrews and his team were “arrogantly thumbing their nose at democracy”.

Mr Davis said many of the reports were likely to show massive cost blowouts in infrastructure projects and hospitals with major deficits.

“The community is entitled to see this information and it is simply a cover up by the government to send the parliament home early to cover their tracks,” he said.