CODE 2, VOL 38, NO 17 : 04 july 2024

QFD – ‘A FIRE SERVICE RUN BY FIREFIGHTERS’

This is an important time for you and your colleagues with the commencement of the new Queensland Fire Department (QFD). QFD was created to ‘enable… the Fire and Rescue Service to return to being operationally focused—a fire service run by firefighters’(Minister Boyd 30 April 2024 Hansard page 1329).

The Commissioner, Chief Fire Officer and the Deputy Commissioner of Fire and Rescue are all professional firefighter positions which has been legislated through the Queensland Parliament.

This refocusing of the organisation, driven by your union, now requires a significant change of thinking by the fire Commissioner and his executive team.  QFD must move away from the failed QFES model, where dressing up in uniforms and influencing operational outcomes was rampant. The QFES model of having public servants attempt to have a say in the way operational matters are to occur is over.

QFD therefore requires a significant rewrite of all QFES doctrine, ensuring that refreshed QFD doctrine exists entirely to focus on operations without the fluffy and unnecessary public service speak. Anything less is just another QFES.

With your union pushing hard for this return to operationally focussed outcomes we expect the senior officers to take charge of all matters relating to QFD, only allowing non-uniformed involvement, advice and support if and when it’s needed.

Your union will be working with QFD to ensure that uniformed professional firefighters are in command and control of all matters that result in operational requirements and/or operational outcomes. In the coming months I will report to you on this transition to a more operationally focussed QFD.

We now have a fire service run by firefighters.

John Oliver - General Secretary