Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:30): I am pleased to rise in support of this petition and those who have signed it, because they are there to support our fire services, both the CFA and the FRV. This is calling for a select inquiry, but we are actually on the upper house Environment and Planning Committee bushfire 2026 inquiry. We have been around right across the state, from Colac to Natimuk, to Harcourt, to Ruffy and to Alexandra. We have listened to people, and back in Melbourne we have listened to the agencies and to Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria. We have listened to people, and overwhelmingly those people are saying this government has got it wrong – this government has turned its back on those people.
I am going to focus on the volunteers for a moment that serve our community for free. When the pager rings, they go out. There are 800 trucks that now should be considered on the scrap heap. Many of them are single cab. That means they go out, people sit in the front cab and then the rest that need to go out are sitting in the back with a half-moon protector. When they are in the middle of a fire – and I have seen incredible photos and film of CFA volunteers up at Bunyip going in to rescue various people in there – they go through flames. We heard the Treasurer yesterday stand up and make comment about how all this is going to the essential services. Well, it is. It is going to Triple Zero Victoria, it is going to Emergency Management Victoria, it is going to core government services, and the actual CFA and FRV are getting this amount. If you look at the pie, it is a small wedge of the pie. So when this government says, ‘We’re serving the community,’ they are serving their own self-interest with a debt that is going to hit shy of $200 billion in a few years.
Yet we go out to the community, and we hear from people in Ruffy. You go out and talk to those volunteers in Ruffy. They were calling for help, and they were told, ‘No, sorry, we haven’t got enough strike team available for you,’ or whatever. They were asking for help, and this government could not respond. Everybody out there, whether they are volunteer or paid, on the fireground is trying to do their best, but this government is not equipping our fire services or our SES with the tools they need to do their job. We support them. They put themselves in danger, and yet this government is not supporting them. What we also know is that they want to scrap that tax. Go out there into the real world. In fact very soon, on 14 June, there is a ‘scrap the tax’ rally in the Premier’s own home town. I know Andrew Lethlean will be there, Mrs McArthur will be there, our shadow minister will be there. We will have a great force of people who actually care and want to do something about this.
Indeed I want to make one more comment. We heard from across the board about firebreaks. We heard across the board that there are not enough planned fuel reduction burns. We heard it way down in Colac, and we heard it over in Ruffy and Alexandra. We heard that there are not enough preparatory burns being done, and this government needs to get on board and make that happen to make Victorians and our communities safer.