Representatives from the Ballan Fire Brigade will present their argument to have the Fiskville facility rehabilitated and re-opened when the parliamentary inquiry resumes into the controversial site from a short recess.

Ballan fire lieutenant Ian Ireland will be one of two spokespeople representing the local brigade in front of the inquiry’s chair and Labor MP Bronwyn Halfpenny.

While Mr Ireland recognised the safety issues around residue chemicals were important it did preclude the possibility of a clean up and recommissioning of the Ballan amenity.  

“We will be trying to rectify the situation and stress the importance of Fiskville to the community, employment and how safe Fiskville is – irrespective of the campaign that has been run against it,” Mr Ireland told The Courier.

Without Fiskville being in operation, Mr Ireland said the closest training base for local volunteers is Longerenong in Horsham.

“For us, it will have a huge effect for training volunteers in our district 15,” he said.

“You are looking at close to a three hour drive there and three hour return drive, so there’s six hours out of your day and you may get four hours training in, which makes it a 12-hour day.

“We need the inquiry to come out and say there is no reason why it can’t be rehabilitated and reopened, providing a top training facility in Victoria as it has done in the past.”

Mr Ireland believes the current training facility used by the CFA in Melbourne is ‘insufficient’ and is not available to volunteers.

Mr Ireland said he is looking to present alternative information to what he believes has been a heavily one-sided argument against the facility so far in proceedings.

“Previously up until now all the evidence has been weighted against Fiskville,” he said

“There is something like 400 or 500 submissions, so they’ve had to go through and select the ones they want to hear from.

“Up until now it has been very loaded against.”

The facility was closed permanently in March 2015 prior to the inquiry beginning following allegations that cancer cases and other illnesses were linked to the use of water contaminated by chemicals at the site.

Mr Ireland said an interim report released last month gave an indication from the government and Country Fire Authority that it won’t be re-opened, which will see major job losses.

“Come the end of September, about 60 people will lose their jobs,” he said.

“It hasn’t just been used for fire services, Victoria Police have used it for training, anti-terrorist activity training, all sorts of things because of its location.

“They are talking about building a new one, but they’ve indicated that the new one won’t have dinning or accommodation facilities or a teaching centre…it won’t create any workforce.

"They are just going off on a tangent of Fiskville is so Chernobyl type that if you go out there you will get very ill.

“It’s not like that all.”