 Good afternoon everybody and thanks for joining us. I'm Michael Wooten, Chief Executive Officer and I'm joined here today on my left by Margaret Thomas, Acting E.D. of People and Culture, Phil Harbert Acting E.D. Performance and Strategy, Deputy Chief Officer John Haynes and knowledgeable Cormac Acting Executive Director of Business Services. The purpose of today's session really is to start to give people an opportunity to contribute to the fire services review and to contribute specifically to CFA's submission to that review. So it's about listening. We'll answer questions where we can and if people have got comments or input that they want to make in the context of the reviews, in terms of reference, then we'll certainly capture that today and consider it in the context of our submission. We just wanted to talk perhaps briefly at the start about the review itself before we go into gathering feedback and what we're trying to hope to achieve in terms of our submission. So for those of you who have read the terms of reference, they're very broad and far reaching but they generally cover four key areas, resourcing operations management and culture and specifically the review will look at what resources are needed to ensure Victoria is properly equipped and fire ready, to look at interoperability between the fire agencies, to look at management structures, culture, work practices and have volunteers should be supported. So it covers a wide range of areas across our entire organisation and areas of other other agencies as well. So as I've been out and about even in the last week or two talking about the review and even this morning in Dandenong, one of the key pieces of feedback we get already is around the timelines for the review and we appreciate that those timelines are extraordinarily tight but they're timelines that have been set by others and CFA intends to work within those timelines no matter how tight they are. So we have a requirement to make a written submission to the review by the end of August which effectively is less than two weeks away now. A number of other agencies specifically have been asked to make a written submission within the same timeframes and in addition to that last week the review opened itself up to submissions from the general public and they've set up a website for the review where any member of the community can make a submission for the consideration of the review team. The review will then prepare a report for our minister's consideration by the end of September. We've put together a small team given the timeframe to work intensively on our submission and a couple of those people are here in the room today. Obviously the people around me as members of ELT and the foreign emergency management leadership team have a key role in terms of contributing subject matter expertise and strategic input into the preparation of our submission. We're dealing and approaching the review as an opportunity. It's a way for CFA to put forward a positive response that may canvas some suggestions and ideas for how we may improve going forward as an organisation to provide a better service for the community. But our mission has been and will continue to protect lives and property and that's one of the key messages of our submission. I've already received pieces of feedback about people reading into the review, what they think it means and I appreciate and acknowledge those concerns. As I said, the terms of reference are very broad but I'm also aware that we're an organisation that's experienced significant change and has been involved in a large number of inquiries, reviews and other like procedures over the past decade. This isn't new ground for CFA. So I think we're well versed in being able to present a coherent and constructive submission to the review. We don't know exactly what change will come out of the review if any. As I said, the review has to report to the minister by the end of September. I think that is designed around not interrupting the fire season and our preparations for the fire season. Whether any government would consider significant change in the context of a fire season is a question in my mind. But there could be things that might be changed in the short term. There may be other things that might be looked at in the longer term and considered post fire season into next year. One of the difficulties with the timelines has obviously been getting access to our people across the state. That's a challenge and continues to be. Having these sorts of forums is one way we address that. I acknowledge that that's not ideal. But at the same time, given the timeframes, we're just not going to be able to get out and about across the state in terms of time and space. Forums like this and another one tonight and written feedback from our members is important and is valued. And I would welcome any contribution that people want to make in whatever form best suits them. So on that note, I might open it up. There's people obviously in the room today and people hopefully watching and listening. So we've got a mechanism to receive questions electronically. And we've also got people here who can ask questions or just provide their thoughts in terms of a scattering feedback. So happy to take any of that now. Mark, so about December. So Mark's, Mark's, Mark's question was about when we think the review outcomes or report, I imagine, will be fully announced. It's unclear to me. I'm not sure how long the minister has determined she would need to consider the report and its recommendations. I expect that's the form that will take and then subject to her views, how she would then obviously discuss that with her cabinet colleagues and government more generally. So again, if there were things that the report recommended could be done in the short term, they might be pieces of work that might be known and implemented more quickly. And there could be other pieces that take more time. I haven't got a clear line aside about the government's proposed response, Mark. Do we have any questions, John? We've got one last question. Can you assure us that the review and the union won't remove volunteers from service? Yeah, so the whole question around our service delivery model is one piece of feedback that we've been getting right from Day Dot. My sense is having had a conversation with the team leading the preparation of our submission, already harnessing the thoughts of ELT and yesterday we spent time with the CFA board doing the same thing. One of the things we want to do with our submission at the front end is really talk about our service delivery model and why we believe it works. So, you know, our model is quite unique. And the notion of volunteers and career firefighters in a service delivery sense working together, we believe works well. And we will be making the point of their submission that we believe that's what underpins our organisation. So in terms of remaining a community-paced emergency service organisation, comprised of volunteers and career staff across 1,220 brigades, I think that'll be a point we'll make at the front end. Okay, I'll put it on the live stream questions at the moment. Well, the simple answer, John, I don't know. We talk about our entire organisation and there are many elements to the organisation, but each of them in my eyes are valued equally. CFA people are CFA people, regardless of the exact nature of their role or whether they're paid or not. So I think, you know, as I said, the model for the number of integrated brigades we have works well, where we need to support volunteers with career firefighters, we do that. Our model will continue on that basis unless there's clear direction that that needs to change. So you know, on a day to day basis, we'll continue to do things around interoperability. We'll continue to try and provide the best service that we can to the community that we serve. So I'm not sure at ground level, in terms of what we do day to day that there's going to be significant change. It talks about management structure and things like that. So that sort of takes us up a number of levels from the people who work at our sort of frontline service delivery end. Does our submission anticipate any great changes the way CFA does what it does? So how we look now may be different to how we look in a couple of years time? Well, I think in terms of the service delivery model, probably not, but in terms of us being open to change and improvement, absolutely. So, you know, we've got and we've spent a considerable amount of time and effort in the last 18 months or so working on five key strategies, particularly our linchpin around service delivery. It identifies a number of challenges and opportunities for us in the service delivery sense going forward over the next few years. So, you know, we need to be attuned to demographic change. We need to be attuned to climate change. We need to be attuned to growth in some parts of the state and downsizing in other parts of the state. We've got to take all that into consideration. But I still think the underpinning model works. So I'm not saying it won't result in change, but I would have thought, you know, we've got a model that works, but it could be improved in a number of ways and we'd be open to that. Okay, another live stream one. When will the new CFA chief be appointed? Which is that the chief officer or the chief executive office? Oh, it could be both. He could actually answer both as well. But it says the CFA chief. Well, the, the, well, okay, I'll answer both. So the CEO process is very well advanced. And I think the board will be conducting interviews of a small number of shortlisted candidates in the very near future. In relation to the CFA chief officer, that process started in the last few weeks and has been advertised nationally. I think the the board and the relevant agency are still working through people who have expressed an interest. So that one will progress. But it's, I think it's a few weeks behind the CEO. Okay. Another online. And it's probably you or me. It's definitely me. Does the MFB CFA boarders need to be realigned to improve service delivery? Service delivery, strategy, discussion paper years ago, about three years ago, talked about what other other options, other models. Does the MFB CFA boarder need to be realigned? I think not. And there's a lot of different models you can do if that is an issue out of the review. But you know, again, we're putting a submission in that talks about, you know, CFA territory and how we do and provide our service. So again, we'll be putting up that, you know, how our current model or a slight change of our model would be the option we're going to go with. So in my view, my personal view, I don't think the borders need to change to improve service delivery because we're delivering the service today. Michael, the terms of reference to the review, my reading seem to have a very responsive focus in our submission. Will we be emphasising the importance of community preparedness prevention and so forth? Absolutely. I think it talks about interoperability in a couple of them right, but it also talks about how we can best support our people to protect communities. One of the ways we can do that is through education and engagement. So I would have thought our submission will talk about the full range of services, not just response as important as that is. There's a number of other things that I think we do in terms of the preparedness piece that we want to focus on as well. So, yes. I'll write it online, too. I'd be surprised, it's my personal view, Chris. I'd be surprised if the review went to immediate changes to the strategic action plan. I think it's a document that we've worked up collectively. It's only just been recently launched by the minister. I would have thought in terms of what the review might recommend, those things in the SAPs still need to occur. And some of them are shorter term, some of them are longer term actions, but my sense would be that those activities would still need to occur, albeit in a collaborative joined up way. I'd be surprised if the SAP changed any meaningful way in the short term. Given it's a rolling document, there could be things that happened that adjust it from year to year, but I would have thought for the 1516 deliverables that stay as they are. So the question was about the management structures and the potential closer alignment of the MFB and CFA management structures. I think they're already blended to a certain extent, Linda, in terms of the interoperability and the fact that we support each other, particularly on the boundary. We do a lot of things together with the MFB and other agencies already. So I think we're down that path a fair way. I don't see that stopping. It may go to things like procurement and other things, but again, we're doing things right now, breathing apparatus. As we go forward, helmets, PPC, things are going to be relatively common, I would have thought. But we've got to remember that in that space, we've got an agency of many thousands of people who are impacted by those things. So would the review look at other options? Quite possibly, yeah, I'm not sure, hasn't been raised with me directly by the general who's conducting the review, but people may put in submissions that take us there. That would be a place they might look at. But it's probably something that the review will have to consider if it wants to make recommendations on. But I think we join up pretty well already, to be honest, and do things hand in glove. So the question was about the legislation that underpins the operation of the fire agencies in Victoria. It hasn't been raised against specifically, but I would have thought in the context that our submission, some of the overarching piece will be what the statutory framework is. If there were recommendations around that, I would have thought they'd be more in the longer term and the short term basket, John. Given time to look at potential changes, just the parliamentary process in terms of legislative change. We're in a spring session now. If things are going to be developed in terms of proposals, that would go into next year, I would have thought at the very earliest, perhaps even longer. So I'm not sure we would be proposing anything specific in terms of legislative change, but the review may want to go there. There's already change happening in the emergency planning and the Emergency Management Act right now around fire prevention planning and state emergency response arrangements and those sort of things. So there's things on foot, whether the review might want to build on some of those probably a little bit early to say. But again, I wouldn't have thought that'd be stuff that had happened straight after the review's reports submitted. So the question was around culture and how we might address the terms of recommendation to do with culture. I think we would talk about the fact that in culture, CFA, I can only talk really about CFA is on a bit of a journey. And we've taken the temperature of the organisation in terms of culture a couple of times and recognised that there's things we need to do to address how we might have a better culture in the workplace. So we would talk a bit about that and we'd be open and honest about that, but we would talk about where we want to take it to and some of the steps we need to complete to get to that destination. We would probably talk about the fact that, again, CFA is different in the sense that it does have multiple cultures. And I've talked about that in other forums around volunteer culture and rural and regional culture and metropolitan and command and control. So there's a number of different elements for CFA. I think part of anyone reading our submission that would be good understanding about the organisation. I can't talk to the culture of the MFB. I honestly, you know, I think to truly, we could all talk about things we've heard anecdotal. But in terms of what the culture is actually like in any other organisation, I think I'd need to work there to understand it and talk about it. Good enough live stream one. Does the review provide an opportunity to improve interoperability? You're looking at me. So yes, it will. And again, we just think about you and me, everybody pays a levy and a fire service levy. And we want the best result for our dollars, if you like. So are there things that we can improve interoperable sense with teeth backing? And we're already doing it. We're already doing Breathing Apparatus. I've got an interoperability committee, which is the chief sits on, chief of MFB, EMV and U of U. And it's about trying to get the best bang for the buck, if you like. So already doing BA, talking about helmets. I know there's work already been done on fire truck design. And again, for a plug in the strategy wise, it was already put in our network of strategies about we're going to improve interoperability in the future anyway. So it's on our agenda too. So the review, I think, might just reinforce that view that we will get closer and together and making sure we get the best bang for the buck. So will the submissions to the review be publicly available? And we'll see if a submission be available to members. My understanding from David O'Burn who's conducting the review is that all submissions will be made public, unless the person or agency making the submission requests. Otherwise, it'd be my expectation that CFA submission will be a public document and available to not only our members, but the community at large. And will any part of the submission be joined with MFB? Or is it a separate submission? I don't know yet. I think one of the things I've been trying to do over the last few days is connect up with some of the other agencies to get a better understanding of what their approach might be to the review. And in those conversations, the prospect of potential joined up submissions has been canvassed, but there's been no, we haven't reached a position on any of that. So it's something that I've talked about with a few people, but we haven't, haven't leaned on whether we might do that or not just yet. So it's more to come in that space, I think. Thanks, Tony. The question was about if boundaries did change and MFB went into our metropolitan part, if you like, how would our capacity to form strike teams be done? One of the strengths CFA has got is ability for surge capacity and to get a lot of people moving around the state or interstate very quickly. That's a precious thing that we can't lose. So if we had full MFB coverage of that area, they'd have to be factored in some sort of surge capacity to do that, because the state can't afford to lose it. So, you know, we're known for that flexibility and our ability to do that. And I think that's a precious thing that we've got to hold on to. Okay, another question is that what level of influence does CFA have compared to the U of U on the review? Michael? Thank you, John. Well, you know, we would like to think that we all have equal standing in terms of our contributions to the review. And again, my conversations with David O'Burn have indicated that he's starting with a clean slate. He's prepared to listen and read all the submissions and input that he receives before he comes up with his recommendation. So my sense is that we have just as much opportunity as any other individual or organisation to make whatever statements we want to and for the review to consider those. So one last chance before we wind things up. Any last questions? We've got more online, but we can always deal with those separately after the session. So in closing, I just say thanks for coming along. Thanks for listening and tuning in as the case may be. This isn't the only opportunity to make your thoughts known. So as I said, there's an email address and there's a conversation she can have with myself or other LTE members in terms of making your contribution to our submission. Someone asked me this morning whether, you know, would individual CFA members be making submissions? What do we think of that? That's entirely an issue for each individual to consider. The review has said that it will accept submissions from individuals across the entire state. So that's a matter for each person to consider for themselves. There's an email address, as we said. We make our submission by the end of August. And once that's done, we'll work with the review team if they have any further questions or any other assistance we can provide them before they report at the end of September. And on that note, I'll close the session. Thank you.