6 January 2026
Open Letter to:
The Honourable Jacinta Allan,
Premier of Victoria
1 Treasury Place
Melbourne VIC 3002.
VICTORIA IS NOT BUSHFIRE READY
Dear Premier,
You are no doubt aware that the peak body representing the Australian Fire Services (Australian and New Zealand Council for Fire and Emergency Services) has issued a deeply alarming forecast for Victoria ahead of the coming summer bushfire season.
In short, the peak body for fire season in Australia has foreshadowed potential catastrophic outcomes which no doubt will result in the loss of life and property if this were to eventuate as predicted.
Premier, collectively we place you on notice that we do not have the resources or equipment to confront such a scenario. This situation is compounded by the all-time low morale of volunteer and career firefighters, as a direct result of your failure to invest in Victoria’s Fire Services.
Firefighters, both career and volunteer, will again be asked to risk their lives to protect Victorian communities. They will rise to that challenge, as they always do.
However, they will be doing so under conditions that your government has allowed to become dangerously unacceptable.
We must be unequivocal: Victoria is amid an aging Fire Truck and equipment Crisis, and your government’s failure to act has placed firefighters and the public at avoidable and unnecessary risk.
We have written repeatedly to you, the Treasurer, and the Minister for Emergency Services, outlining how frontline firefighters are being forced to defend life and property using a fleet that is aged, unreliable, and increasingly unsafe. Those warnings have been repeatedly and systematically ignored. In the meantime, firefighters continue to respond to emergencies every single day, carrying this added burden of stress and uncertainty, when their focus should be on the job at hand unsure whether their own equipment – equipment that should be their lifeline – may fail beneath them.
This is not just unacceptable. It is utterly indefensible.
Over 64% of Fire Rescue Victoria’s fleet and approximately 800 CFA fire trucks are over age, in direct contradiction to fleet replacement policy. Some appliances within both FRV and CFA are more than 30 years old and becoming not fit for purpose. No firefighter – and no Victorian community – should have to depend on trucks older than many of the people who serve on them.
We further understand that in relation to DEECA’s fleet being fit for purpose with an ability to respond to emergencies is significantly compromised. In this context, CFA volunteers are increasingly expected to bridge capability gaps using their own equipment—much of which does not have the benefit of modern safety protections. This represents an unreasonable and unacceptable transfer of risk onto volunteers who already contribute so significantly.
Compounding these fire truck and equipment failures and an aging fleet, is the alarming decline in fuel-reduction burning across Victoria. Hazard-reduction activity has halved since Labor came to power in 2014, despite the government’s own assessments showing that the state’s bushfire risk is now worse than the levels reached in the lead-up to Black Saturday and likely worse than the conditions preceding the 1983, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2019/20 megafires. The State Government has also failed to honour the key recommendation of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, which required a minimum of 5% of public land to be fuel-reduced each year. In reality, the government has completed only around 20% of the recommended fuel-reduction burns — meaning approximately 80% have not been carried out. By allowing risk to climb unchecked while simultaneously failing to maintain a safe, reliable emergency services fleet, the government is exposing communities, volunteers, and career firefighters to unacceptable and avoidable danger.
While firefighters prepare to battle a high-risk bushfire season with depleted capacity and failing equipment, your government has collected an extra $610 million through the Emergency Services and Volunteer Fund (tax) – a tax introduced in their name – yet frontline agencies have seen no meaningful improvement in equipment or safety. Firefighters across Victoria are asking the same question: “Where has this money gone?”
We are also extremely disappointed in your breath-taking political expediency in per porting to provide an alleged benefit in pausing the collection to drought affected volunteer farmers, but in reality, this is just deferring the collection to another point in time resulting in an unworkable financial burden to rural communities. In short, we see this as no more than a stunt.
We note that both the Treasurer, the Minister and indeed yourself Premier, have stated publicly that ALL of this money will be spent on the volunteer and career services, however this is not the case.
The truth is unavoidable. This so-called “fund” is nothing more than a cost-shifting measure, and the people paying the price are the ones running into burning homes and bushfires to protect the public. As breakdowns inevitably escalate this summer, your government’s failure to properly invest will be undeniable and potentially fatal.
It is also alarming that Victoria’s Emergency Services Organisations are now forced to rely on Treasurer’s Advances simply to meet core operating requirements – a fact confirmed by former Department of Justice and Community Safety Deputy Secretary Kate Fitzgerald at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee on 27 November 2025. This is not merely unsustainable – it is reckless, negligent, and a profound abandonment of leadership.
We must also raise the serious concerns of CFA Volunteers and Career Firefighters across rural and regional Victoria.
Grassroots volunteers and career Firefighters have been clear:
• They remain strongly opposed to the ESVF tax, which was introduced in their name without their support
and continues to lack transparency and accountability.
• Rural brigades—already operating with limited resources—are being further disadvantaged by unclear
funding pathways and the failure to deliver the equipment and station upgrades they desperately need.
• The aging CFA fleet and outdated, deteriorating stations and facilities require urgent and substantial
investment; volunteers are increasingly being asked to work in conditions that would be unacceptable in any
workplace.
• The current volunteer rebate is inequitable, excluding up to 20% of volunteers due to eligibility rules that
do not reflect the realities of rural and regional volunteerism. This has created frustration, resentment, and a
sense that volunteers are being taken for granted.
We also place you on notice that this risk is foreseeable and preventable and as such in the event of loss of life, we will not hesitate to seek prosecution under the Industrial Manslaughter provisions in the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004.
Premier, firefighters will attempt to meet the demands of the season with courage, professionalism and determination. However, because of your governments policies and lack of investment and total disrespect for firefighters, firefighting capabilities will be severely compromised. Firefighters should not have to attend fires with equipment that is unsafe, outdated and visibly neglected by the government responsible for providing it.
We urge you – in the strongest possible terms – to take immediate action – scrap the emergency services tax and initiate a parliamentary inquiry with a view to restoring and investing in the equipment that is required for Victorian firefighters. The safety of Victorians, and of the firefighters who protect them, depends on it.
Yours sincerely,
