News

SitRep 23/2026

July 10, 2026

SGMs COMMENCE NEXT WEEK

Reminder that SGMs are being held next week starting at St Andrews Fire Station on Monday 13 July.

On the agenda is the endorsement of our Log of Claims for negotiations, and whether to accept the Department’s offer to settle the Permanent overtime meal allowances (more on that offer below).

A full list of SGMs can be found here. In our original notice, the Batemans Bay meeting was inadvertently left off. A meeting will be held at Station 217 Batemans Bay on Thursday 16 July at 1400. The notice has been updated on our website to include the full list.

If you are a new Delegate holding an SGM for the first time, please see below some simple instructions to assist:

1. You will receive a pack of documents from the FBEU office ahead of your meeting, including an Attendance Sheet for all attendees to sign, an Agenda with the motions, and a Voting Return Sheet to record the vote at your meeting.
2. All attendees must sign the attendance sheet, and you must have a minimum of seven members in attendance for the entire meeting, for a quorum to vote on the motions.
3. The motions should each be put individually, and all members vote via a show of hands to Support the motion, vote Against the motion, or to Abstain (meaning they do not record a vote for that motion).
4. The Delegate should record on the Voting Return Sheet the number of votes to support, vote against, or abstain on each motion, and sign the bottom of the sheet. You will also need another member to witness (by also signing the voting return sheet) that the votes have been accurately recorded.
5. Once your meeting is complete, please send back to the office via the office@fbeu.net email address a copy of your filled out attendance sheet and voting return sheet for us to add to the overall tally.

For any questions about the SGMs, please contact the FBEU office directly for assistance.

For Country and Retained Sub-Branch Meetings, if you would like us to see if we can arrange either a person from the office or a member of the Executive to attend via Zoom/Teams to assist in providing any information on the motions, please contact Senior Industrial Officer Rini Krouskos at rkrouskos@fbeu.net (please provide your contact details) and if time permits next week we will see if we can arrange for someone to attend.

PERMANENT MEAL ALLOWANCES OFFER Q&A

On the Agenda for the SGMs is whether to accept the Department’s offer to settle the current dispute regarding overtime meal allowances for permanents.

Details of the offer can be found in Sitrep 21/2026 for those who haven’t seen it yet.

Various questions have come through to the FBEU office about that offer which we have sought confirmation from the Department on. To ensure that members have all the information we do about the offer ahead of the SGMs, please see below Questions and Answers:

QUESTION 1

Can the Department confirm how back payment of claims will be made – i.e. will the Department conduct their own audit of people who are entitled, or will firefighters be required to put their own claims together? If firefighters are required to make their own claims, can you confirm that systems will be enabled to allow people to access their records back to the back payment date?

ANSWER

The Department can undertake an audit to ensure an orderly process is maintained, however in circumstances where the firefighter disputes the quantum of their back payment, we would likely be required to provide the firefighter with access to whatever records are required to establish the claim. It could become difficult to manage if we asked firefighters to put their own claims together noting that the Department would need to verify all claims in any event.

QUESTION 2

Can you confirm that the Backpay claims will be paid and taxed as the actual meal allowances would have been had they been paid at the time?

ANSWER

Claims submitted as an overtime meal allowance via T&E (which generally they all do) are not taxable and not reported to ATO or on the payslip. If the meal allowance is submitted as a claim during normal rostered shift, then it attracts tax and is reported on the payslip. These claims do not go via T&E, rather directly into SAP.

 

QUESTION 3

Can you confirm the $3000 one off payment will be paid to all firefighters eligible to perform recalls for the purpose of maintaining required staffing?

ANSWER

All firefighters eligible to perform recalls would receive the one-off payment.

QUESTION 4

Will employees who have retired after February 2023 be able to claim the allowance?

ANSWER  

Retired employees are legally entitled to the allowances.

In Unity,

Michael Johnsen
Acting State Secretary

Click here to download a printable version of this SitRep.