00:02An announcement Tasmania's Fire Chief hoped he wouldn't have to make.
00:06It's extremely disappointing, our volunteers are tremendous.
00:09They've put their heart and soul into supporting their communities and supporting our organisation
00:15and I thank them for that.
00:16But unfortunately for whatever reason they don't want to engage in this mandatory training.
00:21The TFS has terminated the membership of more than 300 of its almost 4,000 volunteers
00:27because they didn't complete child safety training made mandatory
00:31following Tasmania's Child Abuse Commission of Inquiry.
00:34This is about keeping people safe which is fundamentally what this organisation does.
00:39Some volunteers say while they did the training they felt it was unnecessary.
00:43Really all we wanted to do was be neighbourly to our neighbours,
00:47help put out fires in an emergency.
00:50So to get ordered that you've got to do it or you're out was what gets us fellas all solid.
00:55Some people have adopted the attitude that it's mandatory training therefore we shouldn't have to do it.
01:00But in this day and age and with such a high profile of supporting our young people
01:06and having systems and processes in on our young people, it's difficult to understand that.
01:11The TFS says volunteers were given ample support.
01:14We have provided numerous opportunities both from a point of view of face to face training,
01:20online training, group training, one on one training to our people over that 18 month period.
01:27The fire service says about 200 of those terminated are frontline volunteers
01:31and the rest are social members so its firefighting capacity won't be impacted.
01:36It says volunteers can apply to rejoin the TFS and it will review the training process.
01:41Certainly they'll need to reapply but from our process point of view we will be reviewing
01:47what's occurred over the last 18 months to try and streamline this entire process.
01:51We do not want this to occur again.
01:55movimiento in between
01:55to tell each other
01:59question
01:59problem
01:59upon
01:59base
01:59that
01:59work
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