In a May 2025 edition of SafetyNet we shared the sad story of the passing of ASU life member and CFA hero Simon Lund.
The ASU continues the fight on Simon’s behalf to have presumptive illness legislation cover fire service support staff.
Simon Lund was a firefighter who spent 25 years as a CFA senior technical field officer on some of the biggest fire emergencies in Victoria. He was also an advocate who spent much of his final year leading the campaign to have CFA professional, technical and administrative staff covered by the presumptive illness compensation rules after being diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer in 2024.
Simon’s doctors attributed his stage 4 oesophageal cancer diagnosis to exposure to carcinogenic materials. In his technical role with the CFA, Simon worked on major fires across the state, including the fatal Black Saturday and Black Summer bushfires.
Under the existing legislation he was not eligible for those presumptive rights meaning that he had to deal with the administrative burden of proving that he had physically attended fires and been exposed to carcinogenic risk in order to secure a WorkCover compensation claim. The traumatic and exhausting process cost Simon and his family a lot of his precious remaining time. The challenges encountered in proving his claim motivated the Lund family to campaign for presumptive legislation to be expanded to include professional, technical, and administrative CFA employees.
The ASU has taken up the fight on behalf of the Lund family and initiated a petition to the Victorian government calling for an amendment to the Firefighters' Presumptive Rights Compensation and Fire Services Legislation Amendment (Reform) Act 2019 to ensure that Professional, Technical and Administrative employees at the CFA and Fire Rescue Victoria are also covered.
You can view and sign the petition here - Parliament | Amend the firefighters presumptive rights compensation and fire services legislation amendment reform Act 2019