Volunteer Fire Fighters Association

Coulson’s pioneering in the night fire suppression space is really ground breaking. Read more ….

Three years after the Turnbull announced two Blackhawk helicopters would be transferred to the RFS, it appears that it will no eventually happen.
This is one of a number of stories in this edition of our News Roundup from around the state,

Project title Exploring the influence of leadership styles on volunteer firefighter mental health and wellbeing. What does the research involve? This study seeks to explore the impacts of COVID-19 on volunteer firefighter’s mental health and wellbeing. Specifically, the researchers are interested in

As a volunteer firefighter, you may have experienced exposure to many stressful events while carrying out your duties. These stressful events, such as working on dangerous and unpredictable firegrounds during bushfire threats, can have an impact on the way we feel. The ways in which people experience and process their involvement in such events affect many aspects of their lives.

The Victim summaries contained in this document are from volunteers and staff who have bravely contacted the author to express their distressing and desperate plights. What is clear in every case is that the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS) knowingly showed an arrogant disregard of its duty of care as an employer. It, the RFS, fosters a culture where reports of Bullying, Harassment, Discrimination and Sexual Misconduct were ignored, suppressed or dismissed. Complaints and grievances are systematically lost and investigations delayed and incompetently mishandled to the point complainants simply give up and leave the service. Retaliation is a common occurrence for victims of the RFS. It is common for a complainant to be the subject of a new counter complaint especially when the original complaint is about a Captain or other senior member of their Brigade.

The VFFA made a submission to an Upper House inquiry into Emergency Service Agencies on the 23rd of July 2017.
In that submission, the VFFA highlighted the following key issues:
• RFS failure to properly engage local knowledge.
• Prevalence of bullying, harassment and discrimination in the RFS.
• RFS disciplinary procedures do not provide appropriate procedural fairness and impartiality and have been developed in a way that appears to favour the salaried NSW RFS staff, not the volunteer.
• Nepotism, Favouritism and Similar Forms of Discrimination.

The VFFA also pushed for relocation of the RFS Headquarters to a regional area to break the city centric and ‘Boy’s Club’ culture that had developed.

A total or 27 recommendations were made to the NSW Government by the Legislative Council, Portfolio Committee No. 4 – Legal Affairs.

The NSW Government response was disappointing without any significant actions by the NSW RFS until the most recent display of interest by the current RFS Commissioner, Mr. Rogers.