PM Scott Morrison, we write to request your urgent leadership during the bushfire crisis in Australia.

The Australian Government needs to prioritise the implementation of a reimbursement scheme to encourage all business owners and companies to maintain employee’s income who are forced to take personal leave and/or leave without pay to continue providing emergency support to bushfire effected communities.

Financial assistance for government employees has been approved, and self-employed NSW volunteers may be entitled to claim up to $300 per day for lost income. Scott Morrison has encouraged other organisations to provide 20 days of emergency services leave but this is not mandatory.

Countless private employees are forced to return to work and abandon their duties in the ongoing crisis because they cannot afford to take leave without pay. Multi-million dollar companies are denying volunteer leave to employees because the work undertaken is with a volunteer emergency service agency.

Our government needs to prioritise assistance to all volunteers. Emergency Service staff are unable to cope with the multitude of the disastrous fires raging across the country without the assistance of volunteer agencies such as the Rural Fire Service, State Emergency Service and many more.

The Australian Government needs to prioritise spending. Our country is in crisis, hundreds of homes and business are gone, thousands of people are displaced and traumatised, volunteers lives have been lost and Summer has only just begun. We need to ensure that our heroic volunteers are able to continue volunteering! 

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