The Queensland government has announced a major shake-up of the state's and fire and emergency services, with a restructure, hundreds of additional staff and a $400 million funding boost over four years.
The changes will see the Fire and Rescue Service and the Rural Fire Service form a dedicated fire department, while the police service will host the State Emergency Service (SES) and the Marine Rescue Service.
Minister for Police and Fire and Emergency Services Mark Ryan said the changes came off the back of an independent report by KPMG, which made recommendations about better aligning emergency services.
"To not only respond to changing community expectations around service delivery, but also the challenges that go along with the intensification of weather patterns and climate change," Mr Ryan said.
"All of these things will build better capacity for our fire and emergency services in Queensland, better support for our volunteers, staff and officers."
Hundreds of extra frontline workers
Mr Ryan said frontline staff numbers would be bolstered by 500, including:
- 143 additional firefighters
- more than 100 rural fire service staff
- 30 staff for Marine Rescue Queensland
- 60 per cent extra staffing for the SES
The SES's annual budget will increase to $60 million per year, up from the current baseline of $23 million.
"A boost for the SES, an almost tripling of their baseline budget," Mr Ryan said.
"For the RFS, dedicated funding for capital and equipment and resources."
The future of Marine Rescue
Marine Rescue Queensland's budget is set to grow to $27 million, as it joins the police service.
"The marine rescue has a natural alignment with our water police, they do extensive work with our water police day in, day out," Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said.
"We've already had conversations about how immediately we'll adjust the communications between us and how better we'll be able to buy our assets into the future."
Graham Kingston from Marine Rescue Queensland said the announcement provided certainty for the organisation.
"The funding announcement is extremely important to providing increased sustainability to our volunteers," Mr Kingston said.
"We're very much looking forward to not having to devote so much to fundraising rather than supporting our community."
Boosting volunteers in the regions
Mr Ryan said there would also be a focus on attracting and retaining volunteers in the regions, particularly for the SES and Rural Fire Service.
The area office of the SES will be reopened in Gladstone.
"What we'll see for the staffing uplift is more dedicated people in the regions around the state to support not only volunteer recruitment, but volunteer onboarding and volunteer ongoing support," he said.
Mr Ryan said the transition would take about 18 months.
"We've got to do legislation change," he said.
"We've got to build up staffing numbers. You can't just create 500 on day one, but we're looking at a transition period of about 18 months, to have the whole process complete.
"There will be some aspects that will be able to be transitioned earlier."
