9 August 2012

Simon v. the Firies

| johnboy
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Simon Corbell last night was kicking off an obscure fight with the United Firefighters Union.

Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Simon Corbell, has today urged the United Firefighters Union to engage constructively with the ACT Government and ACT Fire and Rescue rather than resorting to unprotected and unlawful industrial action.

“The Chief Officer of ACT Fire and Rescue (ACTFR) has today written to the United Firefighters Union to request that a direction issued for pumpers to remain on station except for emergency situations and fire calls be withdrawn as it has been issued without a legal basis,” Mr Corbell said.

“The Government has notified the parties involved in unprotected industrial action that if such action is to continue the government is required, under the Fair Work 2009, not to pay employees who are involved.”

Apparently the issue is the government wants to close stations when the crews are involved in training, and the firies want their numbers raised to the point where training can be covered without closing stations.

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So what is the issue? Does SC want them to be able to take the pumpers to where they are training, and they want a new ‘training’ pumper purchased instead? I’m confused, as always! hahahaha!

Simon_Corbell10:38 am 09 Aug 12

I would like to clarify the statement on your website where you refer to ACT fire stations being “closed”. Stations are not closed for training. The fire pumper assigned to a station is fully crewed and available for emergency response while crews undertake training. If a crew undertakes training away from their station, they are available for response from where the training is taking place and other crews are assigned to cover the area normally the responsibility of the crew undertaking training. I am advised by ACT Fire and Rescue that no station has been closed in over 2 years.

The ACT maintains the best response times in the country to containing fires to the room of origin according to the latest Productivity Commission figures. This demonstrates training whilst on duty has had no impact on fire response or fire fighter safety. Training while on duty has been common practice in the ACT for over 2 decades.

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