Budget Cut's - Station Closures

[cartman]

One area of savings that should be implemented across the board by Government is the abolition of five figure bonuses to obscenely well paid public servants who in the main work office hours.

Grant

PS Drove past the about to be completed Cabramatta Fire Station on the Cumberland Highway tonight. Mighty impressive from the quick glance i saw

[ivahri]

Can't argue with that Grant.

Cabra might look great but one of my mates was swearing & cursing the lack of access for cabling. It is apparently awful.

Cheers,

Richard

[freqwaves]

They were trying to close Ingleburn Fire Station because they now have Macquarie Fields & St Andrews stations to cover this area.
I remember the days when the big siren went off which was the call for the firies to attend the station for a job.

John.

[ivahri]

So do I John, I heard that siren many times.

Richard

[JAFO]

Richard, I did hear that 15 were given notice Last Friday. Not good, for me I do see it as a loss of direct support for me as a Firefighter, the expertise lost now have to come from outside the Brigade . . . so to me that is a loss.

Have heard (but can't comment at this stage) what the Departments plans are, and it will effect many more Support Staff and in time both Permanent and Retained Firefighters to, and it will effect Service delivery to the community and maybe even the permanent loss/closure of Stations.

But like you Richard, I have also watched over the past 23 years our Middle Management grow with Inspectors, Superintendents, Chief Superintendents and other Higher Ranking Officers, these Station Forums . . . they just seem to come out of the wood work, and now we have Civilian Business Managers at both Zone and Regional Levels of management and god knows what other levels too . . . all on packages of $160,000 or more, plus the Uniform Officers that we fall under . . . so who will keep their jobs if the axe falls . . . the Business Managers or the Superintendents and Chief Superintendents?????

Me . . . yes I do see a direct connection between Government Services and Liberal Government's in Power, in that there is a clear history of Liberal Governments cutting public servant positions and slashing funding to Government Departments, with many community service program under direct threat of cancelations.

The fact is . . . you have had previous Liberal Leaders like Kerry Chikarovski state publicly that it is the Liberal Party Agenda/belief, that near all Government Services apart from Policing should be privatised, and that there should be next to no Government involvement in Delivery of Services to the Community . . . so it’s a no brainer to why we are seeing major funding cuts to Government departments.

Under a Liberal Government, I would love to know we would have got Funding for all those New Fire Station that have been built over the Past 15 years, Funding of Permanent Firefighters into Country Stations . . . hmmm I don’t think so, and most of the funding for new Stations and Appliances announced by this Liberal Government, has been a carry-on with Funded Programmes from the previous Labour Government that Barry said he would Honour, so next budget will be interesting

And as for the Union, well I don’t always see eye to eye with the Union, and over the past 15 years I have seen many Permanent FF’s Allowances and Conditions traded away by the Union, especially after the Federal Liberal Party came into Government and with their WorkChoices, the Union worked at reducing from 36 odd Conditions and Allowances back down to about 17 or 18, to make an attack on our Condition’s harder by the Department under WorkChoices.

And overtime . . . well unless you are in the country . . . where 60% of our Overtime is born from Retained FF’s Shortages, most of us Permanent FF’s in the Metropolitan area don’t get that much overtime . . . me, my Annual Wage is $73,000 Gross, my actual 2011/12 Annual earnings was just over $76k, so as you can see I got a heap of overtime.

[JAFO]

Does anyone know which stations will/likely close? Has anyone heard Marine 1 call up lately.

found this video on youtube: Telstra and FRNSW case study
http://youtu.be/H4I1z7KsReg

Chrisco,

More to come on the Station Closures

And Marine 1 . . . GONE . . . Out of Service, Decommissioned and sold to the RFS months ago

[ivahri]

Hi Grant,

My understanding of the fiasco that was Marine 1 was that it was plagued by problems relating to cost & where it fitted into emergency response on the water. Maybe it should never have happened in the first place? I bet you & I have seen a heap of ill fated "pet projects" over the years.

Cheers,

Richard

[Chrisco]

thanks for that information JAFO
So the fire fighting operations on Sydney Harbour is handed to Sydney Ports?

[JAFO]

Hi Grant,

My understanding of the fiasco that was Marine 1 was that it was plagued by problems relating to cost & where it fitted into emergency response on the water. Maybe it should never have happened in the first place? I bet you & I have seen a heap of ill fated "pet projects" over the years.

Cheers,

Richard

Yea so true Richard, there has been so many things, station forum I have seen and attended over the years and just can not fathom the wast of money that has occurred,

In principle I believe Marine1 had a lot of potential and could have ended being a very useful resource, but like so many projects funding, training and staffing became issues that ended up just sinking Marine1 even before it was even close to being fully operational to enter a trial period, a shame really.

Chrisco, Ports Authority have been providing Sydney & Botany Harbour Firefighting Capabilities for years, Marine1 to a degree would have allowed FRNSW to have operated, maybe even leading to a faster first response firefighting craft independent to Ports Authority fleet, but it never became fully operational, so we will never really know its full worth

Interesting to note, South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service have had a Marine Firefighting Vessel for 10 or more years, Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Service recently announced that they are starting to investigate their own Marine Firefighting Capabilities following a couple of million dollar pleasure craft fires,

[JimK]

Marine 1 main issue was the half-baked approach by the NSW Government to fire fighting needs in Sydney Harbour.
Either they should have been totally involved in fire fighting with a much stronger commitment or not at all. They tried to make Marine 1 a compromise which will always fail especially with budget cuts.