The Rockliff Liberal Government is today releasing the draft Bill that contains the most significant reforms in 44 years for our Fire and Emergency Services.
The draft Tasmania Fire and Emergency Services Bill is the result of more than six years of comprehensive reviews and public consultation.
Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Management, Felix Ellis, said with the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters it is important that we take action today to empower our emergency services for tomorrow.
“We need more fuel reduction and we need to improve the standard of our facilities for our career and volunteer workers,” Minister Ellis said.
“We have 5000 volunteers who require uniforms, training, equipment and health and wellbeing support. We have over 300 facilities across Tasmania that need maintenance and upgrades including female change rooms and facilities for increasing female volunteers, and we have an ageing vehicle fleet.
“To do this, we are empowering the leaders of our Fire and Emergency Services and delivering on the reforms we announced in January this year.
“Our Consultation Bill also includes a new funding model for our fire and emergency services.
“This is because we know from the reviews that the current funding arrangements for the TFS and SES are complex, unfair and unsustainable. They fail to provide the funding our fire and emergency services need.
“We are going to fix this to support our fire and emergency services, who do so much to keep our communities safe.
“Our Government will abolish the business insurance levy, reform the property-based levy, and continue the motor-vehicle levy. We will also increase the concession rate from 20 to 30 per cent and in doing so we will abolish an entire levy on Tasmanians.
“We will consult on two options regarding the reformed property-based levy, including one that provides special consideration for rural communities. Both provide a growth model for our Tasmanian Fire and Emergency Service and the funding will be ring-fenced for our TFES to exclusively support them in the work they do and the services they provide.
“As part of these reforms we are also committing to double the funding for the Fuel Reduction Program to $18 million each year, to further protect our communities from bushfires.
“We will also establish a volunteer brigade standard to ensure that our volunteers have the facilities they need to keep Tasmanians safe.”
The Rockliff Liberal Government is proud to be making this once in a generation reform to set up our fire and emergency services for our children and grandchildren.
Consultation on the Bill concludes at 11:59pm on Sunday, 5 November.
