Our volunteer firefighters are in strife and we need to support them, not just victims of fire. On Monday PM Scott Morrison reiterated that firefighters were volunteers and compensation was not a priority.
Our PM has come back for a series of photo opportunities, believing that the bushfires are essentially a state responsibility. He's wrong. There are three actions he can do to show proactive leadership rather than reactive leadership. I outlined them in this post (
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) from 21 December.
Today
it's reported that the first one needs to be addressed immediately:
'Mick Holton, the president of the Volunteer Fire Firefighters Association, accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian of ignoring rising public concerns... Mr Holton said after weeks on the front, volunteers had racked up expenses, crowd-funded smoke masks and foregone thousands of dollars in income to defend homes. He said volunteers had spent hundreds of dollars on fuel driving to and from strike teams up to three hours away. "Why aren't we picking up the tab for legitimate expenses like we do for paid people?" Mr Holton said this could take the form of tax breaks for volunteers or expenses being refunded in tax returns. Self-employed firefighters were particularly exposed with no company support to fall back on.'
The PM is being reactive:
'The leaders maintain they have not had any special requests made of them by fire chiefs who are "very comfortable with the arrangements".'
Get on the front foot Scotty. After a month on the job, throughout Australia volunteer firefighters have the same problem. With lost income and bodies stretched to the limit, they're having trouble paying for smoke masks, petrol, food at home, the mortgage and the weekly bills.
The PM's task for the day is to develop a fast process to get cash payments into volunteer firefighter bank accounts so they can pay some bills.
Or he could do some more photo opportunities. That'd be easier. He might go for that option instead.
