Dr WOODRUFF – On the matter of resourcing, can you confirm that the proposed changes to the Fire Service levy will ring fence any money that is garnered from Tasmanians to protect them in fire and emergency situations –
Mr ELLIS – Yes.
Dr WOODRUFF – to firefighting, if that is what the levy is raised for – and to emergency services provisions? There is a concern that the money will be diluted across government.
Mr ELLIS – As I say, yes. It will be ring-fenced funding. The three levies that we have currently are specifically for fire. Our intention is that we bring together SES into Fire to make the Tasmanian Fire and Emergency Services Committee. We need to expand that remit. As mentioned previously, the current funding arrangements for the SES at a local government level do not work. They are patchy across the state and particularly when Tasmanians expect to have a high level of service wherever they live, wherever they have a car crash, wherever they find themselves stuck in floodwaters or significant storms, they get a high level of service. We will ring fence the funding that we will raise under our reform levies but we will make sure that it goes to Fire and Emergency Services here in Tasmania.
Dr WOODRUFF – Minister, on the proposed changes to the levy, we have had a few conversations about this. I would like to be confident that some of the concerns that have been raised can be completely responded to and that you are taking them very seriously. With the new levy, as I understand it, at the moment there is a fire levy, but there will be a combined TFS and SES agency TFES and so, the question is about the continuance of the sufficient funding that goes to TFS activities and to SES activities, recognising that sometimes they are completely distinct and other times they are joined, like at an event I mean. You have talked about giving an assurance that the levy would be ringfenced from other parts of Government use, but can you talk about how you are proposing to make a distribution within the operational activities of the TFS and the SES?
Mr ELLIS – As in, say, to the SES, how much money would they get versus, say, the TFS, is that kind of where your question is?
Dr WOODRUFF – The SES and the TFS, that is right.
Mr ELLIS – Yes, sure, so they are merging to become one agency, this is the TFES ‘stronger together’ reforms that we are delivering. In terms of the distribution of funding, we have a really strong principle in fire and emergency management around resource to risk, so where we identify a risk profile in our community, we then provide resource to address that and there is quite a lot of flexibility when it comes to, say, local circumstances, so say for example our career firefighters do road crash rescue in urban areas but when we come to more rural and regional areas, then that is provided primarily by the SES. However, in some locations, based on their geographic distribution, for example, the Triabunna Fire Brigade, that road crash rescue service is provided by them.
With regard to the distribution, we are going to have a ‘stronger together’ model in the future by a common operating platform with the two agencies as they currently sit. They will maintain their identities but have a broad common operating platform and then with regard to the distribution of those funds to the particular operational parts, that will be guided by risk to resource principles that are well established within the TFS currently.
Dr WOODRUFF – Have you had conversations with the senior executive of TFS and SES? Are they comfortable with what you have described as the model?
Mr ELLIS – Yes, there is really strong support around making sure that we have ringfenced funding arrangements and that we have a resource to risk profile that is long established in emergency services consideration here in Tasmania over the last number of years. The reason is that you need to make sure you have effectively the tools for the job and whether that is trucks, people, equipment or stations, having that right allocation is key. It has broad support and I would expect that element of the reforms will have broad support among our parliament as well, because ultimately, if people are paying levies for fire and emergency services, then those levies should go to fire and emergency services.
Dr WOODRUFF – Thank you. The question is in relation to the definition of emergencies. The United Fire Fighters Union have raised concerns as whether there is the possibility of that levy being broadened to any type of state emergency and obviously state emergencies can be called and have been called recently for COVID-19 for example, which is a health emergency and did require a substantial increase in resourcing to Tasmania Police for the huge amount of work that they did, particularly over that first year of 2020. That is state emergency funding. Can you absolutely rule out the possibility that any fire and SES levy would be used in a situation like a broader state emergency on another matter for general use?
Mr ELLIS – With regard to COVID-19, that is an all-in response. We had a lot of fire and emergency service people who provided a range of support. I remember in King Island, we had SES handing out rapid antigen tests when the borders reopened. I don’t envisage we would go down that path of having the levies provide for pandemic emergencies and other similarly related health emergencies. We are working through the policy development processes as we speak as to where the areas are, but the guiding principles should be Fire and SES and associated capabilities.
The reason why I raised surf lifesaving as a particular example is not necessarily what people would be thinking about nippers and those kinds of matters and they are important with regard to keeping our beach safe, but they actually provide a specialist swiftwater rescue capability to augment the SES’s flood management capability. When we have a flood emergency, the SES respond as well with our swiftwater rescue team.
Broadly speaking, we are committed to making sure that this funding goes to our Fire and Emergency Services and I do not envisage that it would go to a COVID-19 response.
Dr WOODRUFF – That is not a very encouraging response, minister. ‘I don’t envisage’ is not ‘no, it wouldn’t be’ which is what –
Mr ELLIS – Sure, if you want me to say ‘no it wouldn’t be’, then ‘no it wouldn’t be’.
Dr WOODRUFF – Okay then, great.
Mr ELLIS – We need to make sure that the levies are focused on that.
Dr WOODRUFF – Thank you.
