A FEDERAL minister has suggested volunteer firefighters be paid during long-running bushfire events.
Veterans Affairs Minister Darren Chester on Friday told ABC News there needed to be a conversation about the sustainability of the volunteer model.
The Nationals MP said during campaign fires that went on for days, weeks and months, volunteers were taking a long time away from their work.
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READ NOW“Expecting them to take away all those weeks and months to be on the fire grounds, side by side with state government employees who are being paid, I think in the longer term we need to have this conversation,” he told ABC News Breakfast on Friday.
“It’s about the sustainability of the volunteer model. How do you keep the best of the volunteer model, the ethos, the culture of the volunteers but also recognising that we need to get younger people engaged in supporting our firefighting efforts.”
Mr Chester in a Facebook post to his Gippsland constituents earlier this week suggested volunteer firefighters be paid a small annual training allowance as well as a daily payment when doing prescribed burns “because we need to do a hell of a lot more of them to create buffer zones around regional towns and communities in future”.
“And we need to pay volunteers exactly the same as state government employees for attendance at these long-term bushfire events,” the post said.
Mr Chester told ABC News it wasn’t a government position but a personal view he was taking to his community for feedback.
His comments come after Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week announced commonwealth public service volunteers will get at least four weeks paid leave to fight bushfires under a plan to get more “boots on the ground”.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, speaking from Nowra on Friday, said the government needed to consider providing some form of financial compensation.
“This is the best of Australia, people helping out their fellow neighbours, their communities and their cities and towns and regions,” he said.
“It is unsustainable, however, to not have an income for a period not of days, not even of weeks but of months. And this is an issue that does have to be addressed,” Mr Albanese said.
Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, when asked about Mr Chester’s comments on Friday, said it was an issue that she’d just discussed again with the prime minister.
“It is an issue that the prime minister is acutely conscious of and he has been discussing with the premier of NSW and other state and territory leaders,” she told reporters in Perth.
“The prime minister understands that sometimes in circumstances like this volunteers go well beyond the leave that they have and come under financial strain.
“So the prime minister is looking at this issue further on how we can provide targeted support in these extreme circumstances so that our volunteers get the support they need to keep volunteering.”
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