By VICTORIA STONE-MEADOWS
STATE Opposition Leader Matthew Guy joined Shadow Minister for Emergency Services Brad Battin at Monbulk Fire Station to pledge support for non-discriminatory presumptive legislation.
Mr Guy and Mr Battin both pledged on Thursday 12 November they would support presumptive legislation that awarded equal compensation conditions to both volunteers and career firefighters.
As compensation laws for firefighters currently stand, firefighters who contract cancer and other illnesses from smoke or chemical exposure must prove which fire or chemical incident caused their exposure.
Legislation introduced at a federal level and across other states presumes that the cancer developed from exposure during duty and shifts the onus of proof away from the firefighter.
A bill to introduce presumptive legislation was knocked back several times by the then Liberal Victorian government over the last few years.
Mr Guy said his party regrets not signing up to this legislation when in power and said the advice received from departments held them back.
“Yes, it’s absolutely a regret,” he said.
“Hindsight is a great thing of course, but it would certainly have been helpful to get better advice and to be able to sign.”
Mr Guy said the figures received from treasury at the time made the legislation financially unworkable.
“Treasury were looking into a costs basis that was unrealistic and we were provided figures that were clearly unrealistic.”
“When you look at the South Australian model today; that is clearly workable, if we had been provided that kind of information I would have set a very different tone of the debate,” he said.
Mr Guy and Mr Battin also pledged to address other discrepancies between volunteer and career firefighters’ working conditions.
“I will sign this pledge in every station in the state so people believe me and can hold me to it,” Mr Battin said.
“Going forward we need legislation that is equal for all firefighters.”
Rod Stevving, a volunteer firefighter with the Monbulk CFA, said volunteers had the same training and skills as career firefighters and that needed to be recognised in the legislation.
“We’re not just weekend warriors,” he said.
“We need to have both volunteers and career firefighters to work effectively and both deserve respect.”
Jane Garrett, the current Minister for Emergency Services under Premier Daniel Andrews, said presumptive legislation will be delivered next year.
“The Andrews Labor Government is keeping its promise to deliver presumptive legislation in 2016.”
“We are currently working through the details and we are talking with stakeholders including the Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria and the United Firefighters Union,” she said in a written statement.
The discussion today around presumptive legislation brought up some discrepancies between career and volunteer firefighters in the CFA that Mr Guy has committed to address.
“Volunteer firefighters are the heart and soul of the CFA and the heart and soul of fire combat in Victoria,” he said.
“We want to have a long-term conversation with our CFA volunteers and work out how they are not on par with some of their paid counterparts, and to bring them up to that standard.”
Mr Guy has joined Mr Battin and Evelyn MP Christine Fyffe as three members of the Victorian Opposition to sign the pledge to support non-discriminatory presumptive legislation.
