A Fire and Rescue NSW firefighter claims speaking up about the theft of thousands of dollars’ worth of firefighting equipment, the maladministration of public money and assets, and unsafe work practices, has cost him his job and his health.
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‘‘What I saw go on is not acceptable, it’s against the law. I reported it, not to be vindictive, but to do the right thing and I certainly didn’t want to wind up being any part of an investigation,’’ the former firefighter said.
‘‘The organisation has all these rules and regulations we must abide by, but when you do the right thing, it falls on deaf ears. I wrote to everyone bar the Queen over this.’’
The 50-year-old father, who suffers from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression and anxiety, has been in and out of hospital and declared unfit to ever work again.
He says a four-month stint as a community fire unit co-ordinator was his undoing.
‘‘I was going to get some more experience in a different area to prepare me for an officer’s exam. It was the worst move I could have made. Now I’m no longer a fireman,’’ the 30-year veteran says.
‘‘I was meant to be there four months, so you don’t go in somewhere new and cause trouble. But I couldn’t turn a blind eye even though I was a visitor there.’’
The position was co-ordinator of a Community Fire Units (CFUs) which are teams of residents living in urban areas close to bushland who are supported by Fire and Rescue NSW to enhance their safety and resilience to bushfires.
The Illawarra is one of the regions that has CFU trailers on standby at the end of residential streets backing onto bushland. They contain safety and first aid equipment and portable water pumps.
‘‘It was dealing mainly with volunteers, training and assessing them for community fire units,’’ the former co-ordinator said.
He claims he saw federal and state funds and assets ‘‘being apparently withheld, stalled or redirected from the CFU program, with new CFUs not being provided with the equipment necessary or training to allow the unit to become active’’.
When he asked why, he got no answer.
‘‘Later, on the quiet, I was shown a draft business plan document which identified [that] senior executives within the department were attempting to redirect the millions allocated to the CFU program elsewhere.’’
Part of the unit co-ordinator’s job was allocating new equipment and asset management.
‘‘One time there was a pallet-load of portable pumps that arrived. The pumps were there one day, gone the next,’’ he said. ‘‘I went over to start stocktaking the pumps, about $9000 worth, and they were gone, disappeared. I went back and told the boss. He was concerned, then did nothing about it.’’
The firefighter said he was summoned to his supervisor’s office two days later, where he was met by more senior members, and ‘‘dismissed on the spot’’ from the unit co-ordinator’s position.
‘‘I walked out of the building, which is unheard of, they were being threatening, then told me to call the union, I said no, I’d call my solicitor.’’
The firefighter said the theft of the water pumps wasn’t an isolated incident.
‘‘I can say hand on heart that I witnessed, while standing with four other staff members, a former staffer walk into the depot and walk back out with a chainsaw and other vehicle equipment...I didn’t even report that one. There were minor things taken all the time – no serial numbers – things like petrol jerry cans, all sorts of things.’’
The firefighter felt he had a responsibility to report behaviour that made him uncomfortable.
‘‘I submitted several formal safety report notices along with emails about the things I saw going on, mainly over safety issues, not being nasty, just to bring to my supervisor’s attention as I’m lawfully required to do,’’ he said.
‘‘I was severely berated by the superintendent in the presence of my line manager for raising these issues.
‘‘I have legal responsibility, for example trailers that were unregistered and or unroadworthy – they keep arguing that they were, but they had out-of-date rego stickers.
‘‘A week after I grounded a training trailer, tagged it and notified management, it was back out on the road. They ripped the tag off, then a few days later I was informed another firefighter had suffered serious injury on the side of the motorway, after tyres exploded.’’
The firefighter said he became the subject of abuse, bullying and harassment for reporting issues.
‘‘The yelling and screaming at staff I witnessed there, the threats, I’d never seen anything like it,’’ he said.
‘‘A colleague and I got sidelined when we started reporting this stuff. But there was theft going on.’’
He claims an allegation was made about him in retaliation for being a whistleblower.
The father of two took sick leave and returned to work a couple of months later – when he tried to follow up his complaints.
‘‘I wasn’t allowed back to my substantive position, I had to take another position.’’
He requested a workplace investigation and after an initial “informal discussion” with an officer from the professional standards division, was told the investigation was complete a few weeks later on May 12, 2010.
The investigation had been undertaken outside the regulations, a matter later highlighted by the NSW Ombudsman’s office, he said.
‘‘I hadn’t even put my allegations in yet. That was a cover-up. No case to answer for anyone.’’
He then referred the conduct of Workplace Standards to its overseeing authority within the fire service but again no action was taken, he said.
The firefighter says he is disgusted with NSW Fire and Rescue’s handling of the issue. He has joined a dozen former and serving firefighters who have lodged statutory declarations with the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
‘‘I took this up through the chain of command and they ignored it, swept it under the carpet,’’ he said. ‘‘They shut me up and came down hard on me.
‘‘I was very disappointed the commissioner wouldn’t take this on.
‘‘It’s destroyed my family – I’m doing it pretty tough, I’m out of a job but I just wanted this dealt with appropriately,’’ he said.
Fire and Rescue NSW commissioner Greg Mullins told the Mercury he was aware of a number of people who have left FRNSW and were unhappy with the outcomes of matters they raised.
‘‘Many of them were exhaustively investigated by external bodies such as the Industrial Relations Commission, Ombudsman, WorkCover, and the ICAC,’’ he said.
‘‘In such cases, FRNSW has exhausted all avenues to work with the people concerned, and I genuinely feel for them given that they have not seen the outcome they desired.
‘‘I am confident, however, on the basis of available information, that their issues were comprehensively dealt with.
‘‘Should they have any new information which was not provided at the time, I am more than willing to have it investigated, or to refer it to suitable external bodies.’’
The statutory declaration of a former senior firefighter referred to NSW Police and Emergency Services Minister Stuart Ayres, ICAC and politicians.
I can provide documentary or other evidence upon request.
In the course of my duties I witnessed and made reports alleging:
■ workplace safety matters.
■ theft or unexplained loss of plant and equipment.
■ inappropriate workplace conduct including bullying, intimidation and harassment.
■ serious maladministration in relation to Community Fire Unit establishment, appropriate volunteer staffing levels, training, equipment and resources.
■ inappropriate financial expenditures by Unit management of both state and federal funding allocated to the Community Fire Unit program.
I allege that senior executives from within NSW Fire and Rescue have:
■ refused to act upon reports made of alleged criminal conduct in accordance with the NSW Crimes Act 1990.
■ have utilised their positions to conduct, interfere, impede, obstruct or taint investigations, in breach of FRNSW regulations.
■ The matters of workplace bullying and harassment have continued to the present date towards myself as I openly refused to engage in broader scale corruption occurring within my workplace.