Western Australian councils unsatisfied with volunteer firefighter system, years after Rural Fire Service calls
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A West Australian shire at the centre of one of the state's worst bushfires has moved to shed its duty of care for volunteer bush firefighters, as the majority of WA councils admit they are not satisfied with the current system.
Two people died and nearly 200 buildings were lost when a bushfire tore through the town of Yarloop in 2016.
In the aftermath, a special inquiry recommended the establishment of a Rural Fire Service separate to the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES).
The McGowan government instead set up a rural fire division within DFES, leaving the duty of care responsibilities with local councils.
A new survey of 92 WA local governments has revealed 93 per cent were not wholly satisfied with the current management of volunteer bushfire brigades.
Just over half of the surveyed local governments said they did not support having to manage bushfire brigades.
The Shire of Waroona, in which Yarloop is located, said recent changes to the state's work health and safety act had raised the bar for the level of responsibility the shire has over volunteers.
Chief executive Mark Goodlet said Waroona not fit for purpose when it came to the duty of care for volunteer fire fighters.
"Firefighting in a rural setting is a very high-risk activity," he said.
"I am aware DFES helps with risk mitigation and with training, but they don't carry the responsibility.
"Local government does, who don't have that expertise."
Mr Goodlet said if a volunteer firefighter was killed while on the job, the council could be investigated and prosecuted with industrial manslaughter charges.
"The fines that a council themselves could be prosecuted for have lifted from three-and-a-half-million dollars to $10 million," he said.
Waroona shire president Mike Walmsley, whose farming property was impacted by the 2016 fire, said there needed to be a better way.
"They [the state government] went for Rural Fire Division [but] that's basically become an administrative arm or an advisory arm," he said.
"It's not really what the recommendation was about."
State president of the Association of Volunteer Bush Fire Brigades of WA, Dave Gossage, said Waroona's decision to advocate for the end of their responsibilities was a concerning trend.
"I'm just a little bit gobsmacked by what [the Waroona council] is saying," he said.
"If you go down this path, we're going to lose the ability to make local decisions and you're just going to form another state bureaucracy.
"The only people that say it's broken is state agencies who want to take over and build an empire, and that's not in the public interest."
Mr Gossage urged councils to change tactics and instead advocate for a larger share of the Emergency Services Levy (ESL) to better equip them to manage volunteer brigades.
"Only 20 million of [the ESL] directly goes to local government who provide about 90 odd per cent of the state's emergency services response," he said.
"So, if the local government administrators focus their energy on taking the lion away from the meat chest, then they might have a bigger crack at the pie."
The WA Local Government Association (WALGA) has released a discussion paper to understand local government's sentiment on the issue.
It was advocating for a clear pathway that allowed local governments to transfer responsibility of brigades to the state government.
"A hybrid model would enable the continued management of [volunteer brigades] by those local governments with capacity," the paper said.
"While providing a framework for the transfer of the management of [volunteer brigades] to the state government where a local government does not."
In a statement, Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson said local governments had always had a duty of care towards bushfire brigade volunteers and there had been no change in responsibility.
He said local governments were supported financially through the ESL and more than $140 million had been earmarked in the May state budget to improve firefighting resources.
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