The Council of Australian Volunteer Fire Associations is a collaboration of eleven volunteer fire brigade associations within Australia.
Through its member associations it represents some 250,000 volunteer fire-fighters and operational support volunteers across the country.
The Council has been established to give volunteer fire fighters a united voice in discussions and negotiations with governments and key stakeholders, with particular emphasis on the:
- Federal Government,
- Emergency Management Australia (EMA),
- The Australian Emergency Management Volunteer Forum (AEMVF), and
- The Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council (AFAC).
The current fire emergency in Australia has been anticipated by AFAC and the Commissioners of the firefighting agencies in Australia.
CAVFA is an affiliate member of AFAC and as such is the authoritative voice of volunteers to this organisation.
We now seek discussions at the highest level with the Federal government to coordinate the calls for greater support for volunteer firefighters.
We are well aware of the various views that have been expressed in recent days in the media with varying degrees of popular support within our ranks.
We are meeting to consider input from our member associations and together with the survey we have been running for over four years to ascertain volunteer opinions, we believe we can bring a sensible resolution without knee jerk responses to the many suggestions.
We welcome community support and the Federal government intervention into what has been a state responsibility to date. We will continue to discuss current requirements with the agency heads who are running the fire situation in each state.
We also will maintain the close relationship with State governments through our member associations.