Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Werriwa for this really important motion. It's crucial that we continue to recognise and thank our volunteers, and I'm sure every member in this House knows the power of our words when we mention their names and share their stories in this House. It's an important motion, and I'm honoured to speak on it.

We often talk—and the books will tell you—about the three levels of government: federal, state and local. But, for myself, I have a passionate belief that the most important level is the fourth level: the community. In many ways, that's really represented by the amazing volunteers who give their time, give their effort and sacrifice so much. Our emergency services, our CFAs and our SES sacrifice not just their time but, in many cases, their health—both physical and mental—to serve our communities, and they don't ask for payment for that. I spoke earlier today and also last week about Black Saturday. The 14-year anniversary of that day is an important reminder for myself of the work that volunteers do, but I know that people volunteer across the country.

Recently, I shared a post on social media about the culture of the CFA and a fundraiser that the Coldstream CFA Fire Brigade were doing to raise funds. One of my constituents—someone I know well—Patrick, posed the question: why do the police and the ambulance services get paid and not have to pay for their operating costs, but our SESs and our CFAs have to turn snags and do other fundraising on top of the service that they do for our community? It's a very good question, and it's one that I believe we in this house and in state and local government should have a conversation about.

Volunteers in emergency services volunteer their time to save lives, not to turn sausages. They do that because they have to. A senior CFA member who is a volunteer suggested to me that CFAs in Victoria have to raise approximately $25,000 a year in operating costs just to keep going and to keep the doors open. I'm sure it's a very similar number across the country. It really is quite amazing that we're asking them to fundraise for themselves. I acknowledge the significant fiscal challenges that we face across the country, and historically emergency-services funding has been a state responsibility, but I believe this is a national conversation we need to have. We see more and more natural disasters on significant scales—and Black Saturday is one that I will talk a lot about, but there were significant bushfires in the summer of 2019, and clearly there are floods we have just experienced. We are asking these volunteers to do more and more with their time, and we need to support them. We need to find ways to give them the resources they need because we know that our community volunteers are the first responders who will be there. By the very nature of an emergency, we don't know when and how it's going to strike, so if we are unable to get significant paid resources—whether that be the army, professional firefighters or police—to that spot, it's always the community volunteers. It's so important that we give them the resources that they need to make sure that they can protect our community.

It's not just emergency services they give so much to our communities. In Casey we are blessed as a semirural area to have amazing township groups that not only provide a strong voice for their communities but also organise activities to support their communities. Bec Rosel recently won the Yarra Ranges Council's Citizen of the Year for organising the Lilydale Street Fair through an organisation called the Lilydale Township Action Group. That idea was born out of helping a town that was really struggling with lockdowns of COVID. That's just one of the hundreds of examples I could give. Five minutes isn't enough time to talk about all the community groups who support so much, whether it's our Rotary, our Country Women's Association or the people who support charities like homeless organisations. Like every electorate across the country, Casey is blessed to have so many amazing volunteers, and I thank them for the time and the commitment that they give to our community. I thank their families because, in many ways, their families don't see as much of them as they could because they are serving our community. Those partners and children and family do that because they know they are giving back to make a stronger community.

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