Ms BADGER – Minister, the budget papers lack a bit of detail around the continuation of the existing funding towards four of the additional field officer positions to increase the level of operational support for Tasmania’s volunteer firefighters. Irrespective of whether that funding is coming from a general pool or has been shifted to the State Fire Commission budget, is it your expectation that these field officer positions will continue or are you expecting that operational support for Tasmania’s volunteer firefighters will decrease over the forward Estimates?
Mr ELLIS – Thanks Ms Badger. Support for recruitment of more field officers is about coordinating support and training for fire emergency services volunteers. That’s $1.5 million over three years between 2025‑26 and 2027‑28. Four of these additional field officers have now been appointed to the role and the regional chiefs have allocated tasks to these additional staff based on the operational needs for their region. We consider commitment complete and transferring to business as normal. I will pass over to the commissioner.
Mr SMITH – Thank you, minister, and through you. Yes, these positions are important to support volunteers and assist with the workload of the district staff. It’s our intention to build the business case to go into the corporate plan ongoing for these positions and it’ll be assessed as a priority by the commission members.
