Right: The wreckage of a truck in which two firefighters died highlights the hazards faced by full-time fireman and volunteer alike.
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Arguments in favour of paying volunteer firefighters
1. Fires are now more extreme, extensive and are occurring for longer periods of time
Those who argue that volunteer firefighters need to be compensated for their services point to the far greater demands that are now being placed on them. Where once they may have had to combat fires for a matter of days or weeks, they may now have to fight far more difficult blazes for much longer periods.
Across Australia there is evidence of a trend toward more extreme fire weather over the past 30 years, and of lengthening fire seasons. Fire agencies usually have a six-month break from bushfires between April and September, but in 2018 they had only three months' respite.
Multiple studies, here and overseas, have found the climate crisis is extending the fire season. In the past, the season started in spring in New South Wales before moving south to Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania in the new year. David Bowman, director of The Fire Centre at the University of Tasmania, has claimed the most striking thing about this fire season is the continent-scale nature of the threat. By the end of December 2019 massive fires were burning in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria making it impossible for firefighters from one jurisdiction to assist those in another. In Queensland, by as early as November 23, 20 homes had been lost and about 180,000ha burned. In Victoria, where the bushfire season usually starts later, 100km/h winds fanned more than 60 blazes during an unprecedented heatwave. Seven districts in South Australia were rated as being at catastrophic risk of fire as temperatures soared into the 40s. A blaze on the Yorke peninsula burned through about 5,000ha, damaging at least 11 properties and injuring 33 people. Western Australia also experienced early bushfires in several regions, with fears of much worse to come over summer, and there were minor bushfires in Tasmania. By December 25, 2019, the area burned across Australia this fire season had pushed beyond five million hectares, an area larger than many countries. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has noted that the scale of what has burned in that state is unprecedented at this point of the fire season.
Ross Bradstock, from the University of Wollongong's Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, has pointed to the Gospers Mountain fire which has expanded to become almost certainly the largest single ignition-point forest fire recorded in Australia and, for mid-latitude forests, possibly the world. Two months in, Bradstock noted, the Gospers Mountain fire is a monster, 'just unimaginably big' and nearly impossible to contain unless there is substantial rain.
This problem is also being keenly felt in western United States, where fire agencies have warned that the fire season now lasts all year round. There is also clear evidence climate change is increasing fire activity in the United States; the record for the largest fire in California's history has been broken two years in a row.
This has increased the problems facing Australian firefighters as the capacity for each nation to lend assistance to the other to combat fires is reduced when each is fighting major blazes at the same time.Australia's fire season is overlapping with that in California, making resource-sharing more difficult.
2. Firefighting is cutting into the incomes of firefighters and limiting their capacity to continue
Those who support payments being made to men and women fighting fires for an extended period argue that without this these firefighters and their families will suffer great financial disadvantage and may not be able to continue with their work.
The leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, has stated, 'If someone has not had an income for a period of months because they have been fighting fires, and we met someone in Bilpin who had been fighting fires since September every day, people who don't have an income for a period of three months, it is unsustainable.'
Mr Albanese further stated, 'There's no doubt that people, when they expect to volunteer, will do so for a day, a week, and many of these people for months. But ethoses don't put food on the table. They don't pay your mortgage or your rent. The fact is that wherever I have been, this issue has been raised with me.'
Mr Albanese reiterated this point after visiting firefighters battling blazes in the Blue Mountains. He stated, 'I have...been very clear that people who are fighting fires, not for days or weeks but for months, still need to put food on the table for their families, still need to pay their rent and mortgages.
It is the least that can be expected that this should be looked at by the government and the government should act.'
When the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, announced that the Commonwealth government would be extending its period of paid leave for those Commonwealth employees fighting fires to at least twenty working days and that it expected all large employers to do likewise, he acknowledged that such arrangements were necessary in order to ensure that those who were devoting long periods of time to firefighting could do so without having to worry about their own personal circumstances.
Mr Morrison stated, 'With bushfire seasons starting earlier, one of the things I've heard on the ground is that some people are dipping into their other leave entitlements to stay out there battling blazes.
Today's announcement is about ensuring our volunteer firefighters can keep focused on the job at hand.'
The leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, has also stressed that firefighters need some form of payment so that they are able to continue their vital work. Albanese has stated, '"Firefighters deserve our praise, they deserve our thanks. But they also deserve a bit more too. They deserve for Government and for all of us, businesses are certainly kicking in, to do whatever we can to make sure that they can continue to do this.'
The importance of ensuring that firefighters did not suffer economically as a result of their commitment to fighting fires has been similarly stressed by the New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian. Ms Berejiklian stated, 'We want to ensure that nobody goes backwards and suffers unnecessary hardship because they are putting their life and property on hold to support others.'
Though he is opposed to payment for volunteer firefighters, New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, has similarly acknowledged that there are circumstances in which firefighters require compensation to avoid serious financial hardship. The Commissioner has stated, 'This will provide a security net to ensure that volunteers are not disadvantaged or going through loss of income as a result of their extraordinary and ongoing commitment.'
3. Payments are necessary in order to ensure that all firefighters are treated equitably
It has been claimed that the present terms under which volunteer firefighters donate their services are not equitable. Currently state and federal government employees receive paid leave when they undertake voluntary firefighting work. It is also the case that many of those who work for large companies may also be given paid leave in order to fight fires.
It has been argued that it is unjust and unequal that those who are self-employed or who work for small businesses have not only to surrender their time and put their lives at risk in order to fight fires, they are also financially penalised in a way that other volunteers working beside them are not.
Victorian Nationals MP and Veterans' Affairs Minister, Darren Chester, has stated, 'We've got volunteers now taking a long time away from their workplace, whether they are small business people, whether they are farmers, whether they are employed in the towns... Expecting them to take away all those weeks and months to be on the fire grounds, side by side with state government employees who are being paid, I think in the longer term we need to have this conversation.'
The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, acknowledged this need for equal treatment of firefighters with different employment backgrounds when he followed up his initial statement that all Commonwealth employees engaged in firefighting would receive at least twenty days paid leave in order to allow them to conduct their firefighting activities with the subsequent announcement that those firefighters who were self-employed or were employed by small businesses that could not afford to give them the paid leave would be assisted by the Government. They would receive leave paid at the rate of $300 a day once they had been firefighting for at least ten days and this would be paid up to a value of $6000 per firefighter.
Mr Morrison justified these payment arrangements with the claim, 'This announcement provides employees of small and medium sized businesses and self-employed volunteers with the same level of support [as those employed by the government or by large companies].'
Mr Morrison reiterated the importance of equity when addressing reporters at Rural Fire Service New South Wales headquarters in Sydney. He stated, 'This basically equates to around 20 days of emergency services paid leave for self-employed people and for people working for small and medium-sized employers.'
Sky News commentator Peta Credlin writing for The Daily Telegraph in an opinion piece published on December 28, 2019, has also acknowledged that the extension of paid leave to firefighters who are Commonwealth employees or work for big companies created a potential for inequality. Credlin stated, 'The PM said he would ensure public servants got up to four weeks paid leave annually to fight fires. The banks, quick to grab the PR opportunity after a horror year of bad behaviour, have said the same too. And Woolworths, as well. Already, that now means some volunteers will be immune from loss of income while others, working for someone other than these big players, or self-employed, will not. The risk, of course, is that it ends up creating two classes of volunteer - those who can get by and those, who for every hour on the truck, means a potential hit to their ability to make ends meet.'
4. Firefighters need to be paid for the out-of-pocket expenses they incur while firefighting
A particular area that has attracted public comment in the debate surrounding whether firefighters should be paid is the question of their out-of-pocket expenses. It has been noted that when firefighters incur expenses related to firefighting including fuel expenses, food expenses or equipment expenses they generally meet these costs themselves. Because they are unpaid, there is no provision for them to claim such expenses as a tax deduction and, as volunteers, they do not receive any sort of cash recompense.
The injustice of this situation has been noted by Sky News commentator Peta Credlin writing for The Daily Telegraph in an opinion piece published on December 28, 2019. Credlin observed, 'Right now, the government has the ability to make special arrangements - like one-off payments or tax-breaks for volunteers (because let's not forget, because they are not paid, the current tax rules don't let volunteers claim any out-of-pocket costs for equipment or fuel). These are the sort of things that should be explored at a special meeting of state and federal leaders and emergency chiefs, so that we add sensibly to what we do, in our land of "droughts and flooding rains"...'
The issue of out-of-pocket expenses has been raised repeatedly by Mick Holton, the president of the Volunteer Fire Firefighters Association. Holton has asked, 'Why aren't we picking up the tab for legitimate expenses like we do for paid people?'
Explaining further, Holton has claimed that volunteers had spent hundreds of dollars on fuel driving to and from strike teams up to three hours away.
One New South Wales Rural Fire Service volunteer has stated that standard issue equipment was often the 'bare minimum'. He further claimed. 'It meets the basic standards but it's not the best. I've spent nearly $2,000 alone on upgrading my PPE to a higher standard - helmets, better goggles, things like equipment pouches, head-mounted torches, which aren't standard issue or where the standard issue is the most basic.'
The question of supplying personal equipment such as face masks is particularly vexed. Mr Holton has said that volunteers had resorted to crowd funding to pay for smoke masks. He maintains that the cost of such necessary equipment should be met by the government. He has estimated that purchasing the $350 masks for an estimated 6000 volunteers would cost taxpayers $2.1 million which he believes is a small and necessary investment of public funds. He has criticised state and federal governments' failure to act in this area: 'Basically, they [the government and RFS] are saying keep chewing smoke and we will have a look at it after the fire season.'
Several firefighting crews across New South Wales have used crowdfunding to raise money for personal equipment. Copacabana on the New South Wales central coast and Ingleside in Sydney's north both started grassroots campaigns appealing for funds to buy more face masks. The treasurer of the Copacabana brigade wrote on Facebook that the crew were 'horrified' they have had to use RFS-issued P2-grade dust masks and had sought to raise money for what they believe to be the better P3 masks.
There has also been substantial criticism of firefighters having to pay for their own equipment on the social media. Some have called for government assistance for firefighters, others have called for public monetary donations and there have also been calls for large companies to donate the necessary equipment.
On December 19, 2019, Claire Connelly tweeted, 'Volunteer firies queuing up at Bunnings to get much needed gear, paid for out of their own pockets. I could cry.'
Among the responses were several criticisms of state and federal governments. Wendy Collins responded on the same day, 'The Government saying firefighters are equipped is just blatant lies' and one day later another reply read, '@ScottMorrisonMP and @GladysB you need to be sacked...People who pay no tax get free franking credits. Unpaid volunteer Firefighters paying for their own equipment at Bunnings.'
Also, on December 20, 2019, Rob Tee tweeted, 'Why argue about who should donate more. It's a vital service, the state and federal governments should fund it properly. People are putting their lives on the line.'
As of December 31, 2019, Claire Connelly's original tweet had attracted nearly 1,000 retweets and over 2,500 likes.
5. Payments are not intended to create a professional firefighting service
Many defenders of some form of payment for volunteer firefighters argue that this is not an ongoing arrangement intended to replace Australia's volunteer firefighter service with a professional one.
Those who have instituted the current payment of up to $6000 for (currently) New South Wales and South Australian firefighters have indicated that this is not a permanent measure and is intended to assist firefighters in getting through the difficulties of the current situation.
This point has been made by the prime minister, Scott Morrison, who has stated, 'Australia's system all around the country has always, and will always, depend on having a large volunteer force to deal with these issues. When people join these organisations, they do it to protect their community and do it out of a sense of great service.'
Morrison has indicated that current measures are an interim expedient only, claiming, 'The challenge is the duration of these fires during this season.
I've heard some stories which would make folks out there just shake their heads, but now is not the time to go into it. Let's get through this first, and then let's sit down with all of the relevant people.'
Morrison has stressed that the capped recompense of $6000 for New South Wales and South Australian firefighters during the 2019/2020 should not be seen as a permanent system of payment for supposedly 'volunteer' firefighters.
Morrison has stated, 'While I know RFS volunteers don't seek payment for their service, I don't want to see volunteers or their families unable to pay bills or struggle financially as a result of the selfless contribution they are making.
This is not about paying volunteers. It is about sustaining our volunteer efforts by protecting them from financial loss.'
Morrison has further indicated, 'The volunteer effort is a big part of our natural disaster response and it is a big part of how Australia has always dealt with these issues.'
The prime minister has stressed his government's commitment to a volunteer fire force and claimed that there are no plans to professionalise its work. Morrison has stated, 'We are constantly looking at ways to better facilitate the volunteer effort, but to professionalise that at that scale is not a matter that has previously been accepted and it's not currently under consideration by the government.'