 Are you ready to go? All right everyone, if you could take your seats and we'll get started. Sorry, it's okay. So I want to thank to start off with the wonderful team at the Novotel. Just reconfigured all the room around us and the wonderful job they've done all weekend. So. You know what? There's just a total buzz this whole weekend. It's just been awesome to be part of. And if any of you guys have heard Steve Warrington talk before, you'll know how infectious his passion has. There's no pressure, Steve. Everything's crazy. But there isn't any pressure because this guy has a lot of passion and it'll convey across what he's gonna talk about. So he's gonna come and speak to us about the importance of community safety. And he's gonna sum it all up and provide us with a farewell message about community connections and where do we go from here? So please welcome in a giant SES and CFA. Welcome Deputy Chief Officer Steve Warrington. I like to roam around and they just told me I've got to stand still. So it's gonna be a problem to start with, isn't it? So up here we have this CFA, SES community engagement and Hazard Awareness State Forum. What the heck is all that about? So you've sat here for two days. What does it mean to you? Has there been an epiphany moment to you that you said, I get it? He made the connection. Anybody wanna give me some feedback at the highest level of what you think this has all been about? Are we all two chicken? Charlotte and this group, you're not two chicken. Yes, thank you. Roll. I wish I'd have heard Dr. Brian Cook's talk first. Ask the organizers to invite Dr. Brian Cook and Dan nearly back next year as keynote speakers because they were amazing. So I don't know if it's been an epiphany but all I can think in my head at the moment is I want to listen to the community. I'm not gonna go back and do anything. I want to find a way for the community to tell me what they see themselves being in the future and then find a way that I can help them achieve that. So she's brave enough to have a go at it. What underpins all this? Some people have heard me ask the question before. I've got my roving mics on the way again. Thanks. What underpins all this? What are we actually doing here? Why are we actually here? What's that? I'm waiting for a hand. Someone should know it. Safe, it's more than that. It's actually more than that. Hang on. We are interested in our community with one feedback. It's more than that. We are interested in our community. Absolutely. Thank you. Stewart? I love the pocket. Absolutely. There is one job that we have here. Whether you're SES, whether you're CFA, it's enshrined in our legislation. It is to protect life and property. That is it. That is our job that we do here. When we're in our community, it is our job that we do here. When we see engaging and hazard, why the heck do we do that? When you really challenge, I'm going to give you three slides. I'll change slides. There you go. I want you to think about it. I want you to say, well, what is this all about? So how do we make the connection? I want to show you three slides here. And you tell me how many SES slide votes you see in this slide, the three slides. Tell me how many CFA fire trucks or any fire trucks that you won't see any CFA or SES. Some of them are in another country. How many fire trucks, how many float boats, how many police, how many ambulance you see in these next three slides. And I want you to underpin your thinking by our job is to save lives and property. That's our job. That's what we're here to do. In 2005, a thing called Hurricane Katrina happened in the United States, down in the southern parts of the United States of America. And those of you who have been lucky to go to the U.S. would see that they've got more fire trucks, more ambulance, more float boats, more everything than anybody else. They have a can-do culture in the U.S. Yet how many people, and if you look at our job is to save lives and property, have a look at this. You would say, you could actually say here that we failed 1,800 times. Every time a fatality occurs, you could argue we failed. We're going to have more. And it's interesting, I want to channel Scott here from RavenSES because I was lucky enough to sit on their session there before. Scott stood up and said in the session some controllers, some SES controllers not only don't like community safety work, don't like engaging community, they actually go against it. Can I tell you, SES people, that it's no different to CFA captains because we get in here and say, this is led to people on the lot of them. We're joined because we want to get on the back of a truck. We want to go on firefighters. We join. We don't want this wanky community safety sort of stuff. Have a think about it, people. How many people are saved in Cyclone Katrina as a result of what we do in the response phase? How many? 1,800 people died. Have a look at this one. It was bought in 2011. The Japanese tsunami. Get an SES blood boat on that, stop on that, will you? Certainly not going to get a CFA group officer with his stop sign. Stop. Have a look at the figures, people. 10,000 people died in Japan. And if you've been to Japan, one of the biggest economies you've got going, they have again a big fire service, a big emergency service. They've got more ambulances, more police. They're a very capitalised nation. 10,000 people died in a tsunami. We didn't do it. We couldn't do the job, people. It is what the people did themselves that proved whether they lived or died. Not whether a fire truck or an SES unit turned up. It is what they did themselves that determined whether they lived or died. But the reality is, Bruce, where are you, Bruce? I thought I was just going to pick on you. Are you in here somewhere? Bruce Jules. You know who it is. I'm in over here. I picked on Bruce because he's actually the officer in charge of this truck. And this is... We don't have to go too far. We don't have to go to America. We don't have to go to Japan. We look right in our own backyard in 2009 and 173 people died. I've asked you the things before some of you people, so hopefully you've got the answer. I'm going to take you to Ash Wednesday. How many houses do we lose in Ash Wednesday? Some of you know it. Sorry? We lost 2,000 on homes. How many trucks did we have on the road in 1983? How many trucks did CFA? Let's pick on you. Come on. 450. Do your own math. 2,000 homes lost. 450. We can't do it. Let's go to 2009. 173 people died. How many homes lost? Sorry? 2,000. We've actually got a couple of hundred more trucks. 650 trucks. Do your maths people. 2,000 homes. 650 trucks. Are we coming? I can tell you the 650 trucks were going to rubbish bin fires. False alarm protected premises because we will fight the larger buyer rather than the individual houses in a lot of cases. How successful is command and control in saving lives in these major incidents anywhere in the world? Whether it's a flood, whether it's a fire, whether it's an army, whether it's an earthquake. How successful are we as an emergency services? We know how we know how successful we are. I'm not going to bang on about that too much more but you get a bit of an idea of how successful we are. Have a look at some things that have been told to us. So this hasn't come from us. There's a culture that's 100 years old that says we're here to save lives by providing a fire truck that I will probably break down your door, come and rescue it and carry you out when the house catches on fire. Can I tell you? You know there's some talent in this one. At the climate commission critical decade Extreme Weather Report that admittedly was put out in 2013 stands out as being increased risk for many extreme weather events. Heavy rainfalls, sea level, etc. Where is the worst place to get bushfires? I'll just give you an answer if you're pretty dumb if you don't get it. Well it's actually not. It's South East Australian Smoky Bum. The worst place for bushfires is that part of the world. We're getting more and more floods. We're getting, we see it. We live it. We know that we're getting more and we have these independent experts come and tell us that we're having more and more of these events. They want us to save their life. Yeah, do we do it? We have a response. Let's move on to the next one. We then had an inquiry after the 2009 Saturday fires. And what were one of the recommendations in admittedly SES? You get a breather here, fire agencies easily replace the words here people. Just think about it. Fire agencies need to change their mindset to recognise the most effective way of protecting communities would not be a solution. Oh my God. A hundred years of telling people that we will be on scene in eight minutes and we're coming to save your life and won't even yell out because I'm going to rescue you. I don't know how to rescue you. Independent experts are now telling us, people independent of us are telling us that what we do in the normal response if you like phase is only limited in its success of saving people. Have you made the connection about what these two days are about? People, I would challenge you that your job is to save lives and there is an opportunity here out of this weekend for you to save more lives than we will ever do on the back of a fire truck. More lives than you will ever do on a rescue vehicle or more lives on a flood boat or more lives on an ambulance because we're empowering people to be able to say hey, plan as if we're not here. Plan as if the emergency service is not here and if we turn up it's a bloody bonus because we probably aren't going to come on these big fires, you need to understand what you're going to do on that particular day. So when you come to these forums and you go back home have you learned something? I just want to, I want you to think for a moment the things that you could then learn can relate to your community to make sure that was a pretty good slide it's about you people we need you if you look at CFA for a moment and again maybe because of my background I understand it better we say we've got 60 odd thousand volunteers we know between 20 and 30 thousand those are operational which says to me there's an opportunity for 20 odd thousand plus people to do other things make a community's resilience get in there and do something to change the way of the world. So when you go home from here think about some of the things you've learnt think about some of the epiphany changes will actually make a difference in your community because whether they live or survive will be dependent upon I've taken the opportunity to put this slide in and it's an example of how in a sense we in western worlds are called reliance we have more fire trucks and you'll see it if you see after any major event they'll usually say the ambulance service if they're not on scene within their 16 minutes we better get more ambulances or we'll get more police officers I would argue that we are creating a community that is absolutely reliant on us to turn up we create reliance in a western world and the interesting thing is when you look at third worlds they're more resilient than us in a capitalised world if you like and you only have to look at the Indonesian tsunami I'll give you a quick example of another one in 2009 230,000 this is the same village you know in this village here totally destroyed everybody lived everybody lived why in a cultural sense nobody knew why but when the kids went to school when the tide goes out you run to the hill literally run to the hills when the tide goes out so when the tide went out in 2004 that community ran to the hill they saved themselves not with an emergency service not with a fire truck not with an ambulance the other one I want to give you very quickly is a lake of Filomena in Samoa one person an A in a Polynesian culture in Samoa and Filomena is a woman which is a cultural difference in a lot of our societies but she's a strong woman and she stood up and she said we need to have a tsunami exercise in Samoa and she went against the prime minister of the Samoa the police men all said she would never clue and at the end of the day they said we'll give you a tsunami day only to keep her shut keep her quiet because she was in the media she was like a thorn in everybody's side you know what happened in 2009 I know it intimately because it was the same year we had the Black Saturday Flies they had the tsunami in Samoa 183 people dead in that country in a small country she personally is attributed now for saving thousands of lives because just before the tsunami event she ran a tsunami event day so when you go home do something to channel who was at the Hawthorne coach do something go home and do something don't just stand there and do something you've got some ideas I heard before over here we wait for headquarters no the strength of this is is that you are empowered in your community so when you go to a fire or you go to the flood do you reckon the community look at shiny bums from headquarters? No, of course not they look at you that connect in with your community you don't have to wait for money you don't have to wait for green lights start something, think outside the box pick something off the shelf there's already products out there but if you do something if you're going to get anything out of this weekend then go home and make a connection and think outside the box say hey I need to galvanize my brigade and unit thinking your family is your family safe if there was a fire or flood or a tsunami or some natural event think outside the box how do you connect in with the footy clubs how do you connect into your broader community how do you connect, SES for God's sake SES in there CFA said how do we get the two of them together to say when I stand on the street corner I'm actually going to grab SES and CFA and I'm going to grant the life-saving people the biggest risk in our community is the sea areas because people drown all these days getting eaten up by sharks so have a look and to prompt your memory so I'm going to get dragged off Jamie I've got five you're a good man to prompt your memory in this space there's some presentations that you saw and I just want to attach it just go through a couple of them community connections at the highest level how you connect in with your community and let's just sit through them connecting, rosary and engaging youth in vanilla think of the words here connecting another organisation that this mob has thought of laterally I don't know how that happened for youth in a rural area local people with local solutions fantastic so if you're sitting in vanilla you'll take in the box here if you're sitting in band style here's an idea for you multicultural engagement, noble path fantastic idea so Starr, can I tell you there's a brigade that I was talking to the other day and I'll show my ignorance here a few years ago people came to us and said why don't you get the local workshop, sheltered workshop so we're talking a disabled type people would come into you did that just work on again? I saw because you looked to come into the brigade do the work and I've got what why they can't get on the truck what sort of package can I tell you one brigade's recently done it and the local group comes in every week cleans floors, washes trucks just love it, absolutely love it and so as a result the local brigade members don't have to worry about a lot of those type of things and you know what the extension wasn't just with the sheltered workshop it was with the families, it was with the communities so on I can tell you there's another one look I'll back up about it for ages community resilience journey in Violetown and again local ideas local initiatives that people have come up with themselves can I tell you this forum people I'm almost shocked when I came in here and had a look at the numbers do you understand that this thing started only a few years ago with 15 people one or two people's visions that said let's run a community engagement forum where people have got like minds that are passionate about it that we can come along, we can share ideas we can exchange thinking and we can grow a what do we call it a team of champions if you like started from here if I go on further do you know it started from here the words are lost at the top here in CFA land SES we mandated out of this forum that said you must have a community safety coordinator you must have a community safety coordinator can I tell you Scott some of our people wherever you are absolutely complained and still complain like we don't want community what do we call them safety coordinators in our brigades the idea came out of this forum the idea came out and can I tell you this day as I stand here over 500 brigades have now formally recognised as a role within their brigade it's on the brigade management team a community safety coordinator one idea that came out of this forum that's grown the whole thing just fantastic so it's about us connecting all the ideas just a wing slide that I thought I would put in but part of it is about just thinking outside the box getting new ideas about how we can all join together because I'm going to finish it up by saying our job is pretty simple our job is to make our community safe that's all we have to do that's all we have to do and if you're thinking old sense then we're never going to win the day if you're thinking about empowering your community and how you can do it you will absolutely save lots and lots of lives can I say I want to and Steve the other thing that's happened here too I saw a CEO Steve from SES and Trevor White I've seen the chief on the agenda it's actually getting a lot of support and recognised by a lot of people the importance of the role that you play don't ever undervalue the role that you play you do a bloody great job in saving lives yes you're probably not going to get on the front page of the local paper and yes you're not probably going to get on the news it's the unsung, silent stuff that you do that will actually save lives that you might not even know about you go to a school group and there's a fire or an event, a road accident that happens the following week and the kids done something to make sure they're saved we can directly attribute that to people in this room that are saved lives you do a great job don't underestimate the role that you play don't underestimate the influence that you have not in only your units and your brigades but in your respective community can I just ask you just take an opportunity to recognise that and smell the roses and on that note I want you to give yourself a pause for what you do so if you're not clapping yourself clap the person next to you I will finish up there I do want to thank you coming along for the weekend I know there's a couple of more formal things we're going to do later so we will do that at this moment thank you very much for your time indulge me before we finish up first of all I want to thank and make sure I get it right here there's a couple of people that have put this together certainly Jamie Jamie and Lee, Francis Eleanor and Tasman from SES can I get you to stand up? and Kate you're hiding all down the back that's just fantastic guys can you just come down the front a little bit when I went to school that's back down the front it's a fair amount of work going into putting together and we're always under pressure when you cut government funding back they'll always look for this sort of stuff so we encourage you to keep the energy going I think Lee's just been said this is her last time here and her role actually finishes up so Jamie stays on board on his own but just think about that from a SES point of view one person in a headquarter sense what do they do that and let's get it right Francis, Eleanor and Tasman there's the volunteer reference group I think one of the strengths of this is that while there's some coordinators there are volunteers here that are actually driving us so those people I want you to now stand up if you're on the volunteer reference group if you stand up there are passionate people that ensure this and continue the drive into the future now I'm done if you're not motivated to go back to Units and Brigades to get into action after that you never will be fantastic alright so we've got a couple more things to go through the first and very excitingly we have our bragging board announcements oh my goodness we had so many good entries this time that they've decided there's more than just first place so we've got first place a runner up and three honourable mentions so we will start with our first place start with the best alright so it was a clear winner it was Drew and West Brigade for their joint CFA SES initiative it means Gordon Brigade our honourable mentions stand up where you are and give everyone a wave as they can applaud you oh they're coming together so we've got Belmont CFA SES unit congratulations to everybody that brought their bragging board ideas because I think everybody would have taken something from some of those ideas and I know that from last year's response people actually implemented things that we were sharing so well done to everyone give yourselves a clap the challenge has been issued to the SES guys make sure you get your boards in next year nice and early absolutely okay now just a couple of things before we wrap up who got a feedback form like this at your regional breakouts put your hand up if you have got one alright put your hands down put your hands up if you haven't got one so these are the double sided feedback forms not the same ones that you got from your regional breakout that's for your region feedback so has anybody handed these back there was a bit of confusion nobody handed them back there might have been one or two hopefully you haven't if you have just a potential issue because when you leave this afternoon through these exit doors you need to exchange this to get your USB stick in return through the door this is how we can make this forum better and better every year in particular because we have so many new participants this year you need to fill that out so sit there quietly fill it out at the same time when you leave your USB stick will be given to you and it has all the slides from this weekend photos won't be attached to it because they're being taken still but you will find them on internal internet we'll have them on social media have a look on CFA members big SES they will be around and hopefully you can share them right so that's that hold up that green jacket it was just a jacket left on the bus last night missing a jacket don't forget to come and get that one and now we just need to say a couple of massive thank yous because this weekend has been put together by lots of different components so we want to acknowledge those people so first of all of course all of our presenters and facilitators for this weekend we've already thanked them but we need to thank them again the No Matel staff for their patients and their hospitality our sponsors Three Green and Stuart and Hayden Clothing we've thanked our member engagement team and our SES teams but let's just give them another round of applause and let's also thank the CFA digital media team for their assistance this year with their live streaming their wonderful job their social media and development of the app and in particular once again we'll just thank those volunteer reference group and community education advisory group members which this year included obviously members from both agencies so please a huge round of applause for that team goodness you know what guys that concludes this amazing forum I hope everybody's enjoyed themselves go back and talk about it to your brigades and your units and share the information take care on your travels back and please we hope we all see you again keep networking keep the good job thank you