CODE 2, VOL 31, NO 6 : 07 march 2017

Chief Fire Officer to head dedicated Fire and Rescue Service in new structure

Your union has been working to correct many of the disastrous changes forced upon your employment when the Newman led Queensland government allowed QFRS to be chopped up, put back together, pulled apart and stuck back together like some sort of Frankenstein's monster.

Keelty, Malone, Alison, and others, all published hacked together reports designed to drive secret plans to gut your roles and diminish your strength and professionalism.

In so many ways, the almost century long strength of the fire and rescue service in Queensland was eroded by external, and unfortunately, internal attacks.

As a result, your employment in the professional and auxiliary ranks and in fire communications went through some significant change.

You stopped working for Fire and Rescue and had your identity stripped away from you.

Many of the changes appeared cosmetic or symbolic, but those changes still cut to the very core of what you and your colleagues do to protect your communities every minute of every day of the year.

Some, (not all as yet), of these changes have been reversed by your union.

Your union has always stood its ground and you have worked together and participated in so many ways throughout the past five years, we've all been working together to maintain or restore the strength of fire and rescue in Queensland.

I can report that Commissioner Carroll has announced a change important to our work to restore the strength of the fire and rescue service.

Within the newly announced organisational structure, the Fire and Rescue Service has been strengthened and restored, although still under a QFES umbrella.

The name Fire and Rescue again proudly identifies the work you and your colleagues do as being just that, Fire and Rescue.

It no longer blends what you do with other areas within the mash up of sub agencies that have been patched together to fit the ‘one service’.

You now work under a Chief Fire Officer for the Fire and Rescue Service.

You are a firefighter.

You are a fire communications officer.

You are employed in the Fire and Rescue Service.

You are led by a Chief Fire Officer.

Many other changes supporting that return to a strong Fire and Rescue Service model will commence soon and I will be keeping you informed as that occurs.

John Oliver – General Secretary