Who’s paying for fire protection of Queanbeyan?

I used to wonder what firies did all day….

Reading some of these comments is such crap and just shows how far the queanbeyan fire stations reputation has dropped to – nothing like this ever existed in the past fire fighters just did the job that’s it , – Retained fire-fighters are a vital part of today’s Fire and Rescue Service , don’t people under stand team work , getting on , working as a team , The act fire brigade has always been a great fire service and in the past had a great working relationship with queanbeyan fire service . queanbeyan fire service shouldn not be using the cross border memorandum of under standing for its own personal advantage – instead it should be used only after its own recourses have been utilised first ,

• When Queanbeyan had its own fire brigade there was no cross border memorandum of under standing with the act fire brigade we just relied on each other when our resources were stretched . Queanbeyan had a very well trained group of fire fighters as it was a very busy fire station and ran 4 fire apliances . it is really sad to see such a vast amount of training and knowlage and equipment just lost and the nsw fb doesn’t even care . some fire fighters had been there for over 20 years . amassing what a wast of government money and time . The best thing for the town of Queanbeyan would be for all the permanent fire fighters to pack up and return to Sydney . the over all people to blame for this are the nsw fb who took the jobs of the fire fighters it already had and and replaced them with a permanent crew that are no better trained and dont even know the area

A55A55IN8ER said :

I just clarified this with my mate from across the border and your WRONG!
You say” These are people who have full time jobs and volunteer their time in and outside their full time hours to back up the other truck, and they only get paid for the times that they actually attend the station for a call.”
A volunteer is a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.
A Retained is $PAID$ for the retention of their services.
Is 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday some of the time or a lot of the time.
Unless it’s a bin fire or a car fire don’t the Fire Brigade send 2 fire engines. Therefor 90% of all calls would need two trucks.
You say” Why does NSW doesn’t have more firefighters over the border?”
I say you sound like you may be an idiot savant just without the Genius bit.
You say it’s probably cheaper. Cheaper for who NSW. The answer to “does NSW pay” the answer is NO.
I would hate to have my house burn down due to the fire engine from here being across the border. Due to UNRELIABLE RETAINED STAFF.
It’s about time NSW paid their way.

Dude, you do realise this deal works both ways right? NSWFB and RFS respond to incidents on a regular basis in those inconvenient parts of the ACT that are out of the way for ACT firies. Plus there are many other areas in emergency services and the more mundane where services overlap. Most are covered by a formal memorandum of understanding or the like. Besides, state boundaries are a total crock anyway, we’re all Australian right? Would you honestly begrudge someone a helping hand because they live on the other side of an imaginary line on a map?

I’m not sure I understand all your ranting about retained firies. My understanding is similar to BD84’s, that there is one appliance crewed 24/7 and a retained crew for a second appliance if required. (I do agree that to call retained firies “volunteers” is inaccurate) I have been told there aren’t enough retained firefighters on the books in Queanbeyan for 24/7 cover. Maybe that’s a failure of recruitment, maybe it’s a deliberate choice based on resourcing requirements. I dunno. Anyway, so long as there are enough resources in the area (be they canberra or quangers based) to cover demand, who gives a toss?

I just clarified this with my mate from across the border and your WRONG!
You say” These are people who have full time jobs and volunteer their time in and outside their full time hours to back up the other truck, and they only get paid for the times that they actually attend the station for a call.”
A volunteer is a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.
A Retained is $PAID$ for the retention of their services.
Is 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday some of the time or a lot of the time.
Unless it’s a bin fire or a car fire don’t the Fire Brigade send 2 fire engines. Therefor 90% of all calls would need two trucks.
You say” Why does NSW doesn’t have more firefighters over the border?”
I say you sound like you may be an idiot savant just without the Genius bit.
You say it’s probably cheaper. Cheaper for who NSW. The answer to “does NSW pay” the answer is NO.
I would hate to have my house burn down due to the fire engine from here being across the border. Due to UNRELIABLE RETAINED STAFF.
It’s about time NSW paid their way.

The system may work, but it is an inefficient balance of petty politics walking along a tightrope. NSW is a poorly coordinated schmozzle of a state. The crap between you two obvious FRNSW personnel highlights the fact that the state has a long way to go – if one organisation can’t sort its own crap out, how can the rest of the state?… best be careful, you might punch me for saying that!

Every argument you have raised on here and in other forums regarding how hard done retained fire fighters completely ignores any solid argument for why your exclusion is creating problems for the residents of Queanbeyan – you know… the whole reason you exist! All your arguments are based around self interest, rather than community interest.

What about volunteers? and don’t say that retained fire fighters are volunteers, as they are no more a volunteer than someone fighting for our country in the Defence Force who gets paid for it. The state begs for mass fire fighting capabilities when it all goes to crap, and promptly forgets the effort put in by thousands shortly after. The training required to deal with these situations doesn’t happen over night, and the more experience volunteers gain, the better service they will provide. They are trained to the same competency standards as you FRNSW clowns, and funnily enough fire is the same throughout most of Australia.

It is in the communities interest to ensure both retained and volunteer fire fighters get exposure to incidents regularly to ensure competence can be maintained. A waiting fire fighter does not learn anything. How about you all get real and think about the community – you know the people you seem to be forgetting in view of self-interest. Volunteers and retained fire fighters can turn our prior to the arrival of ACTFB even from Fyshwick – and their ongoing involvement will ensure the day it turns to crap… someone can clean up the mess!

You wouldn’t happen to be one of the permanent fire fighters that have been waging the war of harrassment against retained fire fighters noted in the CT over the last couple of years? You post stinks of it..

To my knowledge, Queanbeyan has one truck that is staffed full time, the other is staffed by “retained” part-time members. These are people who have full time jobs and volunteer their time in and outside their full time hours to back up the other truck, and they only get paid for the times that they actually attend the station for a call.

Yes I’m sure there are small number of times when they don’t have enough part-timers to run the other truck, however you make the incorrect claim that the ACT Fire Brigade is a back up for just these occasions. The ACT Fire Brigade is a full time back-up for Queanbeyan and surrounding areas purely because their capacity is much higher and have additional specialist resources. So even if Queanbeyan had two trucks staffed full-time, one crew would being doing nothing 99% of the time the ACT would still attend many fires over the border.

Why does the ACT provide the service? Well it occurs in every twin border city in this country. Does NSW pay for it? Well I don’t know, I would assume they would similar to the hospital system. Why does NSW doesn’t have more firefighters over the border? Well it is probably a lot cheaper having retained crews and having the ACT attend a few events than pay for a crew that would do nothing for most of the time.

The system works, get over it.