One in five key CFA roles left unfilled as further deficits revealed

The week-long stoush over funding for the Country Fire Authority has intensified after the delayed release of the emergency service’s annual report revealed a deficit despite an increase in government grants after successive cuts.

Funding to the service increased last year, the report confirmed, reversing a trend of consecutive cuts to government grants dating back to 2020.

The report also raises concerns the emergency service’s capabilities are hampered by issues seconding staff from professional fire service Fire Rescue Victoria.

Government grants to the volunteer emergency service reached $361.3 million in 2024-25, up from $339 million the year prior, the report released on Tuesday showed.

This followed annual grant funding cuts between 2020-21 and 2023-24, despite Premier Jacinta Allan’s insistence that it had increased every year.

The CFA ran another operating deficit for the second year running. The service recorded a net operating loss of $50.8 million in the year, an improvement on the $64.7 million losses the year prior.

The government argues total revenue for the CFA has been up year-on-year, but this relies on counting secondments from FRV as income. CFA counted an extra $72.4 million in revenue came from FRV providing free services, including seconded staff.

The report flagged concerns with this secondment model, set up when parts of the CFA and Metropolitan Fire Brigade were merged into FRV.

The model allows specialist and key middle management roles from FRV to support the CFA and work under the country authority’s control.

FRV’s annual report is yet to be published and is also overdue.

CFA chief officer Jason Heffernan said ongoing challenges with the arrangement impacted whether the organisation has the “right capability and capacity to support and strengthen our response to the community”.

Chief executive Greg Leach said the service was still enduring stretches of vacancies or circumstances where paid staff were not replaced, known as “non-relief”. This was as high as 20.6 per cent in 2024-25, meaning there were periods where one in five positions were not filled.

On average, the report estimated there were 19.4 assistant chief fire officers and commander positions unfilled every week.

“Vacancy and non-relief capacity continues to be raised with FRV, Emergency Management Victoria, [the department] and the Fire Services Implementation Monitor,” the report said.

Allan said these issues would be examined once the state’s emergency services had a breather from the danger season.

“There will be the opportunity for those discussions about how we can continually improve our agencies,” she said.

The CFA annual report, which should have been made public last year, was tabled in parliament on Tuesday after the government was accused of failing to adequately resource rural firefighting efforts following last week’s devastating bushfires. Allan and Emergency Services Minister Vicki Ward accused the opposition of stoking misinformation after repeated attacks over the fire authority’s funding

Nationals leader and opposition spokesman for emergency services Danny O’Brien said the report confirmed government funding had dropped over years. Accounting for inflation, he said the hit in real terms since 2020-21 would be $55 million.

“Premier Allan’s claim that her government has only ever increased funding to the CFA is wrong.”

Allan on Tuesday still insisted that any claim of a funding cut was false.

She doubled down on her claim that Opposition Leader Jess Wilson was spreading misinformation, despite the report showing consistent drops in grant funding before the increase last year.

“It really is now time for the Liberal leader to stop, to stop this campaign of misinformation, of conspiracy theories, and really, to show that she is serious,” Allan said.

“The leader of the Liberal Party should apologise,” she continued. “Enough, enough of the politics.”

O’Brien said it was the premier who needed to apologise.

Wilson, speaking on radio station 3AW on Tuesday afternoon, said the premier had been misleading Victorians for the past week and was now “angry [and] desperate”.

Speaking on ABC Radio on Tuesday, Ward said grants did not include surge funding and that fire services had gone through transformational change in recent years.

“I’m not trying to not be clear, and not have a really clear description of what it is that it funds. It’s just that it’s complicated. Emergencies are complicated. Emergency services are complicated. We’re focused on readiness, we’re not about focusing on spreadsheets,” Ward said.

Given climate change is causing more frequent and intense weather events, Allan and Ward also called on Wilson to withdraw from a conference where One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce intends to advocate against renewables.

Allan had claimed the delay to the report’s publication was the result of the auditing processes, prompting the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (VAGO) to intervene and state it was not responsible for the later-than-usual release.

The CFA provided its finalised annual report to the Department of Justice and Community Safety in November, and it was received by Ward in December.

Leach and the board last week also disputed funding had gone backwards. The service received another boost in the lead up to this fire season, the government and CFA have both claimed, which will be accounted for in a future annual report.

Volunteers have publicly complained that the CFA’s ageing fleet worsened morale and membership rates. Government data released in 2023 showed 230 CFA trucks were more than 30 years old.

A government program to replace ageing trucks means 167 are on order or in production, Heffernan said last week. A CFA spokesperson said trucks were replaced as newer ones became available.

“It can take a brigade many years of community fundraising to raise sufficient funds for the items they need, particularly where they are saving for a new fire truck,” the annual report said.

“Every vehicle that a brigade fundraises and saves for is a vehicle that does not need to be funded by the government.”

About 28 per cent of the CFA’s operational fleet has been funded by brigades rather than the government.

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