CFA employs career firefighters in regional cities and suburban Melbourne, because doing so is necessary to maintain standards of public safety in those heightened risk environments. It is vital, both for public safety and for the safety of firefighters, that there are enough boots on the ground as quickly as possible. 

With just six crew, Warrnambool's professional firefighters cannot access the same level of safety as their metropolitan counterparts. Worse, because Warrnambool staff are routinely called to incidents over an hour's drive away to operate their aerial pumper or to respond to technical rescue incidents, when the bells ring there are often just three staff on station. This is not enough even to make entry at a house fire and rescue the occupants, let alone to tackle a blaze at any of Warrnambool's hospitals, schools, aged care facilities or the university. Yes, they can call upon volunteers for backup, but this costs many critical minutes, when every second counts.

Bolstering numbers at CFA Warrnambool will absolutely make the community safer, and firefighters safer. It means eight firefighters on fire trucks and two more on a technical rescue truck. Not only will they be able to tackle building fires more safely, they will be able to respond to technical rescue calls – like the recent high angle rescues in the Grampians and Mt Arapiles – more efficiently and effectively.

Roma Britnell's attack on Warrnambool's firefighters unfortunately stooped lower than just questioning the need for more staff. One wonders whether Ms Britnell in her nursing days ever worked two consecutive 14-hour night shifts, preceded by two consecutive 10-hour day shifts, like firefighters do every week. If her house erupts in flames at 4am, which would she prefer arrives to rescue her and put her out: a crew that is somewhat rested or one which is suffering from dangerous fatigue levels? Like paramedics, career firefighters are provided with rest-and-recline facilities for use between responding to incidents in the dead of night.

Perhaps, before going off half-cocked, Ms Britnell should have just asked a local expert, like I did.

The tax rate for companies with turnover under $50 million a year will be cut to 27.5 per cent so we can "stay competitive with other countries". This is despite many countries, including those in the OECD, having company tax rates of more than 30 per cent.

Like ourselves, many are facing the problems of insufficient revenue and budget deficits, and an inability to provide services or maintain/replace ageing infrastructure. The US is talking about lowering its company tax to 15 per cent and Britain has lowered its to 20 per cent. It seems we will enter a race to the bottom regarding company tax.

The Australian Institute of Company Directors has called for a cut in the top personal tax rate to 37 per cent. To offset this, it wants to increase the GST to 15 per cent, which will gobble up the one-off payment begrudgingly granted to welfare recipients as part of the company tax deal. Self-interest rules.

If many millions of dollars can be promised to fix a road in inner urban area because of one life lost, how is it that only small funds are available to fix major roads very important to the state’s economy after multiple lives are lost, such as major road links in western region? The roads minister needs to look at the importance of roads not votes.