Mayor column: with Cr John Harvie
Published on 05 June 2025
Last week Council learned that NSW Minister for Regional Health, the Hon. Ryan Park announced that Moama is to get an ambulance station. The station will have three ambulances and be staffed with five paramedics, which is in addition to the fifteen additional paramedics to be stationed at Deniliquin that was announced a few weeks ago.
This is great news for the Moama community and thanks must go to local Member for Murray, Helen Dalton, for her tenacious advocacy on this over several years.
The construction of a new police station is also powering ahead in Moama and should be completed by October, as promised. Now we just need announcements from Minister for Police the Hon. Yasmin Casley, giving the green light for a new police station in Mathoura and Minister for Roads and Regional Transport the Hon. Jenny Aitchison announcing funding for the replacement bridge over the Murray at Murray Downs to complete the quadrella.
In even better news, the NSW Government Public Accounts Committee handed its report on the inquiry into the Assets, Premises and Funding of the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) to the government.
President of the NSW Country Mayors Association, Mayor Rick Firman, said “Local Government has long complained that the way that firefighting assets are managed in NSW no longer reflects on-ground reality. Most residents are not aware that virtually all RFS assets and equipment from fire trucks to sheds, are actually owned by their local council and not the RFS.
Further, that even though councils own the assets, carry them on their books and are responsible for their maintenance, we have absolutely no control over them. In most cases councils do not even have a key to the RFS sheds they own and maintain”.
MRC own and maintain over twenty fire stations in our local government area.
The matter has come to a head in recent years, when the depreciation of the RFS equipment has hit council finances hard. The CMA and councils across the State have lobbied hard for what has become known as the “Red Fleet” to be removed from council asset registers and transferred to where they belong, the RFS.
MRC supports the Committees findings and recommendation that the Rural Fires Act be amended to recognise that the RFS owns and operates the Red Fleet and, as such is responsible for its maintenance and renewal.
We hope that the NSW government will agree to adopt all 14 of the committee’s recommendations.