DFES volunteers gagged under code of conduct: Warren-Blackwood MP Terry Redman

Warren-Blackwood MP Terry Redman has made explosive claims that volunteer and career firefighters will be gagged under an updated Department of Fire and Emergency Service’s code of conduct. DFES members are instructed to not discuss departmental matters with State or Federal MPs or invite them on to department premises unless authorised under the code of conduct. “Under the veil of the COVID crisis, the Government has put in a rule now that says if you’re a volunteer under the banner of the DFES, then you are required to complete a code of conduct that says you’re not allowed to contact a State or Federal MP,” Mr Redman, pictured, said in a statement this week. “I think that’s fundamentally wrong. “You can’t gag volunteers on talking to Members of Parliament on any issue, whether it be on their safety, whether it be their facilities, whether it be the culture of the organisation.” But Emergency Services Minister Fran Logan dismissed Mr Redman’s notion that volunteers had been gagged under the code of conduct. In response to questioning by Nationals MPs before State Parliament went on its winter recess in late June, he told Mr Redman that DFES members were expected to relay their concerns through the department’s chain of command. “If they have something that they want to take up with the member as an elected member, outside their role as a volunteer, of course they can — they are citizens,” he said. “But their first point of call is their responsibility to the commissioner under an act of Parliament — something you, as a former minister, should know.” Mr Logan also pointed out DFES volunteers and career firefights who acted as whistler blowers were protect by WA law. “People who want to tell members things, or expose something that they think is wrong in DFES, are covered by the Public Interest Disclosure Act,” he said.