With bushfires burning out of control and the state under a week-long state of emergency, the issue of firefighting funding now and into the future has been raised.
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While social media has been ablaze with claims the Rural Fire Service has had its funding slashed by the current government, RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons has labelled it "misinformation and rubbish".
The figure most questioned has been the state's firefighting capital expenditure, which covers the purchases of essential equipment such as fire trucks, helicopter water bombers and support ambulances.
In this year's budget the government cut the NSW RFS capital expenditure budget by almost $50m to $16.4m, while NSW Fire and Rescue saw a budget cut of $28.5m to $51.9m. The NSW State Emergency Service saw an increase in its budget of $15.7m to $26m. The word fire was mentioned just once in treasurer Dominic Perrottet's June budget speech.
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Meanwhile, while crime is on the decrease, the NSW Police Force was budgeted an extra $66.6m this year, receiving a total of $285.9m.
However, the $66.3m handed to the RFS last year included the one-off purchase of aircraft and $18.2m relocation of their headquarters to Sydney Olympic Park.
It was a considerable increase given that between 2012 and 2017 an average of just $12.8m a year was budgeted to the RFS.
"We have got more money today than we have ever had before in the history of the organisation," Commissioner Fitzsimmons said.
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This year's figures on the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service are unavailable due to the dismantling of the Office of Environment and Heritage after this year's election.
Last year parks employees shared their concerns over the decision to reduce the number of senior incident controllers in the region from six to one due to restructuring, which also saw the loss of many years of local firefighting experience. This week, the Australian Workers' Union claimed 50 key field officer roles across the state remain empty.
Fire management in national parks saw $3.7m budgeted for the next financial year. Meanwhile, $7.8m, or more than twice the bushfire budget, has been allocated to attracting more tourists to national parks.
The government has committed $68.4m to upgrade and maintain the fire trail network across the state over the next decade, with $14m allocated for this financial year.