Victoria's Country Fire Authority has called in police and anti-corruption authorities to investigate its own workforce, the CFA's Chief Executive confirmed on Thursday.
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The revelation by the authority's chief executive, Frances Diver came days after The Age revealed women working for the CFA have been sexually assaulted and harassed amid a culture of fear, bullying and impunity.
The allegations were contained in a previously secret report, the contents of which have been made public in recent days.
With political pressure building on the Andrews government over the dysfunction gripping the state's fire services, Ms Diver told 3AW radio's Neil Mitchell on Thursday morning that cases have been sent to police and to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.
"In response to the report, we've taken action within the organisation to improve our complaints process, to set up an independent integrity officer," she said.
"We've made referrals to police, we've made referrals to IBAC, we have acted.
"We have made a lot of change in the CFA, I won't tolerate that sort of behaviour.
"There are number of cases that we have referred to the police and asked them to investigate, that relate to people's behaviour.
"There has been a referral of an individual who has been accused of an assault."
"I am appalled at the idea that people are coming to work and that's acceptable for them to be bullied or harassed or they have no mechanism to find their way out of that situation," she said.
"I have made it clear if any of that behaviour is happening at the moment we will address it."
- The Age
