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United Firefighters Union of Australia
Victorian Branch

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Firefighters demand that the FRV commissioner and ELT resign and FRV be placed into administration

The FRV Commissioner has overseen the worst fire service performance outcomes in the
history of Victorian career firefighting services.

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Fire services are in crisis

  • Fire authorities need an estimated $1.5 billion between 2024–25 and 2033–34 to address critical fire truck replacement and upgrade needs.

  • 67% of FRV fire trucks are past their service life. Victorians are paying twice as much emergency services tax while getting less fire service.

  • Firefighters haven’t had a pay rise in 6 years while the Carroll Government is trying to remove the work conditions that protect firefighters and the community.

  • FRV’s targets require crews to reach structure fires within 7.7 minutes and other emergencies, including road crashes, within 9.2 minutes, 90 per cent of the time.

  • Analysis of data from ten FRV stations in designated growth areas found response times were slower than these targets and below the state average.

  • Victorian ALP government has driven a massive decline in the fire service.

  • Firefighters and corportate employees have voted and the result is 90.85% no confidence.

THE Big Questions

  • Why has there been no Accountability: At what point do repeated safety and leadership concerns warrant serious consequences?

  • Firefighter Safety: Why have longstanding equipment, fleet, communications and staffing concerns allegedly remained unresolved

  • Pay Rises: How can year on year pay rises for ELT and the Commissioner be justified whilest there has been no pay rises for operational staff for 6 years.

  • Transparency: Why have key audit findings and safety decisions not been fully disclosed

  • Leadership: What accountability should follow when staff express such a high level of no confidence?

    The central question remains: Are these failures the result of poor decision-making, inadequate oversight, or systemic problems within FRV leadership?

Why this action needs to be taken

Firefighters KEY POINTS FROM INDEPENDENT Victorian Auditor-General’s Office REPORT

Firefighters have less than 8 minutes to arrive at a house fire. The independent VAGO Report has confirmed what firefighters have been saying: Because of the state of FRV fire trucks/fleet, their ability to save life and protect property has been compromised. 

Firefighters have been totally vindicated.  

Almost 4 years to the day, Firefighters/UFU Members were forced to commence a public awareness campaign about our Fleet Crisis.  Since then, their serious concerns have been ignored by the Government and FRV’s Executive, firefighters have been gaslit and vilified for speaking out, and firefighters have been left with no option but to use unreliable equipment.  Ask any firefighter out there if they believe anything that FRV’s Executive or the Government say when it comes to their fleet.  This independent VAGO audit is damning and should be the basis of the FRV Executive being stood down or removed and an administrator replacing them. 

AUDITOR-GENERAL KEY POINTS DRIVING THIS CRISIS

  • For FRV, faults are high because of the age of its fleet.
  • FRV is not keeping up with its scheduled maintenance program and has the worst scheduled maintenance outcomes of all the Victorian fire services. “Between 2021 – 2025 FRV missed:
  • 8 per cent of annual services
  • 6 per cent of 6-monthly services for its division A [inner metropolitan] fleet
  • 7 per cent of 6-yearly services.”
  • The number of unplanned repairs has increased the most for FRV fire trucks out of all fire services – by 19.8% for FRV fire trucks.
  • Fire trucks aged 15 to 20 years on average have had … “37.5 per cent more unplanned repairs per year for FRV than trucks aged zero to 5 years” 1
  • Communities covered by FRV that require aerial truck protection have been less protected because five FRV aerial appliances were unavailable for extended periods.
    “In 2025–26, 5 of FRV’s aerial appliances (which are fire trucks with ladder platforms designed for highreach rescue or firefighting) were unavailable for extended periods. This was due to cracking repairs, electrical faults, major overhauls and parts delays.
    As a result, aerial appliances were available only 57.3 per cent of the year on average. This is well below FRV’s 85.0 per cent fleet availability target.
    At Sunshine Station, FRV needed to replace a 27 year-old teleboom (a specialised truck for highreach firefighting). No aerial appliances were available, so it replaced it with a pumper (a truck that pumps water from hydrants). Pumpers do not have similar high-reach equipment, so this reduced the station’s aerial capability.”

Commissioner Freeman’s “Failure Files” – Key Points

  1. 91% No Confidence Vote – Firefighters, corporate and technical staff overwhelmingly voted no confidence in the Commissioner’s leadership.
  2. Data Terminal Failures – No adequate data terminals despite a coronial inquest finding and WorkSafe investigation.
  3. Inadequate Vehicle Tracking – Failure to adequately address vehicle tracking before the planned 3G network shutdown, leaving firefighters reliant on mobile phones that can fail when vehicles do not charge them.
  4. IT System Hack – FRV continues to recover from a major IT hack, with some systems reportedly unresolved since 2022.
  5. Radio Failures – Communication black spots indoors, in tunnels and in some line-of-sight situations.
  6. Long-Duration Breathing Apparatus (LDBA) – Concerns were raised about leadership delaying action until equipment expired, despite prior warnings.
  7. Delayed Fire Station Projects – Questions remain over Armstrong Creek and Clyde North stations, as well as promised new stations in Bendigo and Frankston.
  8. Executive Pay Increases – Executive salaries and staffing reportedly increased while firefighters received no comparable increases since FRV’s inception in 2020.
  9. Fleet Audit Secrecy – Refusal to release the full fleet audit, providing only a summary.
  10. Excessive Legal Spending – Significant expenditure on lawyers, which critics argue could have funded important firefighter safety improvements.
  11. Flash Hood Safety Concerns – Refusal to discuss new flash hoods despite changes to relevant standards.
  12. Increasing Response Times – Concerns over longer response times, failing trucks and crew shortages linked to a lack of promotional courses.
  13. Unstaffed Specialist Vehicles – Rehabilitation and breathing apparatus (BA) vans reportedly sitting idle due to insufficient staffing. 
  14. Fleet Concerns at the Bushfire Inquiry – The Commissioner reportedly disputed concerns about the fleet, attributing problems to maintenance and stating that government fleet investment was sufficient
  15. Blaming Firefighters – Allegations that firefighters were unfairly singled out over incidents including the Tarneit house fire, the Metro Rail incident and the Viva refinery incident.
  16. Failure to Increase EMR Response – Concerns over the lack of increased Emergency Medical Response capability.

The crux of the matter

  • When Commissioner Freeman and his Executive are told by their masters (in particular, the Treasurer) to make smaller budget bids, they don’t advocate for more and instead comply. This means that they do not advocate for what firefighters actually need:
    “From the 2024–25 to 2026–27 state Budgets, fire authorities have received 12.1 per cent of the estimated funding they need to address issues across their fleets … During this time, FRV and CFA reduced their state Budget funding proposals in response to instruction from the Treasurer to all ministers that government agencies should limit their funding requests in line with the government’s fiscal strategy.”

  • The above fact alone is the reason that Commissioner Freeman and his Executive should be removed from their offices as they allowed their firefighters to operate with antiquated equipment.

     

  • In FRV, fire trucks have a median age of 16.1 years old and have the highest proportion of fire service trucks that are at least 15 years old: 59.8%.

     

  • FRV Firefighters have previously told the community that the truck crisis has resulted in trucks being moved around like chess pieces, in other words, where a truck is faulty, it simply gets moved to another fire 2 station and is often replaced by a worse truck without the knowledge of the firefighters that have received the replacement truck/s.

  • The ALP Government has been aware, involved and done nothing but fuel the worsening of this crisis.

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