VFBV

Expressions of Interest are now open for Victorian Brigades wishing to compete at the 2017 Australasian Firefighter Championships.

The Championships will be held at Carterton, New Zealand, on 17 to 19 November 2017.

The Australasian Championships will comprise 10 events with 30 teams from Victoria, NSW, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and New Zealand.

The closing date for EOIs is 1 March 2017 – send your Brigade name and contact details to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. call the VFBV office on 9886 1141 or write to J. Laing, VFBV, PO Box 453, Mt Waverley 3149.

VFBV welcomes the appointment of former DCO Joe Buffone as CFA’s new Chief Officer, due to take up the role in November.

Mr Buffone is currently the Deputy Commissioner of Risk and Resilience for Emergency Management Victoria (EMV). He has also served as Deputy Emergency Services Commissioner for Victoria, and performed a series of senior roles with CFA in the wake of the 2009 fires and the Victorian floods of 2010-11. He has been a CFA volunteer for more than 15 years.

Joe Buffone will succeed CFA Chief Officer Euan Ferguson. Euan will be remembered as a hands-on Chief Officer, who took up the role in 2010 after 10 years at the head of South Australia's Country Fire Service and led CFA through a time of considerable change, including the effects of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and the move towards a more interconnected Emergency Management Sector.

LABOR’S PRE-ELECTION COMMITMENTS

Taken from Labor media releases;

• $141.3 million to recruit an additional 350 CFA firefighters and 100 Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) firefighters over the next four years
• Legislation to give career and volunteer firefighters presumptive rights to compensation for cancer claims arising from their service
• A Parliamentary Inquiry into the pollution, contamination and unsafe practices at the training college at Fiskville to examine health effects on employees
• Ensure that the Fire Services Property Levy is used to support firefighters and improve emergency response
• Implement Emergency Medical Response at all integrated CFA stations
• Re-establish a CFA/MFB Board of Reference to resolve staffing and station needs
• Examine options for the establishment of a Career Firefighters Registration Board
• Honour all agreements
• Also train and equip firefighters with the latest technology to battle brown coal fires
• Expand support services for firefighters suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• $18 million to purchase 50 new fire trucks… …to fund the new medium tankers in its first budget
• $1 million to install toilet and wash room facilities at up to 100 rural CFA stations, with grants of up to $25,000 to brigades (while contributions from brigades will be welcomed, they will not be mandatory)