Every day in Australia 61 people are diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer, and 12 people die from breast or ovarian cancer.
In the last 28 years, the Mother’s Day Classic Community has donated $48.23 million to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and since 2024, $2.57 million to the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation.
The UFUSA in partnership with SAMFS have a proud history of participating in and supporting The Mother’s Day Classic.
Mother’s Day, Sunday May 10th 2026
We invite you to join our team this Mother’s Day, Sunday May 10th 2026, to participate in a 4km or 7km run or walk, followed by a breakfast at the start/ finish line at Pinky Flat / Tarntanya Wama.
We would love some motivated and passionate volunteers to assist as Team Captains and on the day with duties such as cooking the BBQ and assisting with the “touch a truck,” appliance display.
If you are interested in being a Team Captain or assisting on the day, please contact: Carly.White@eso.sa.gov.au or the UFUSA office on info@ufusa.com.au
If you are on shift crew would like to participate, could you please reach out prior to registration to ensure this can be accommodated in deployment.
How to Enter:
1. Log onto the Mother’s Day Classic website: www.mothersdayclassic.com.au
2. Select Event then SA, Adelaide
3. Select Register Now
4. Register to Walk or Run
5. Continue as instructed
6. IMPORTANT – Click on ‘join a team’ and then begin to type ‘ United Firefighters Union of SA’ team, which then pops up – click on that, then click continue.
7. Follow the remaining instructions to complete your registration(s) to our team
8. The UFUSA “pink firefighter T-shirts” are available to order. We encourage members that already have one to wear it on the day however if you require a shirt, please send your size to mailto:info@ufusa.com.au
If you have already entered the event but haven’t joined the “United Firefighters Union of SA’” team please contact info@ufusa.com.au so we can add you to our team.
Superannuation scheme changes:
Members will have received the recent notice published by the SA Metropolitan Fire Service Superannuation Scheme notifying of a decision to cease the Scheme’s defined benefit structure, and to convert members with a defined benefit to an accumulation benefit.
There are a few points I would like to make to members:
- The Union does not control the fund, or make decisions for it. UFUSA nominates some directors to the corporation which acts as trustee in relation to the fund. Those persons then exercise their duties as directors independently, and subject to the duties applicable to corporate directors. They sit alongside a number of non-union directors to make decisions.
- I do not doubt that the directors of the fund have acted in good faith, and have formed a view based upon the information available to them about the best interests of the fund and its members. The Union will also form its own view about the best pathway forward.
- As I am not currently a director, I do not have access to all of the information that they have considered in making decisions. I have written to Darren Royals of the Superannuation fund asking that the information and advice upon which the decision to cease the scheme’s defined benefit structure occurred, so that the union and its State Council can consider that information and form a view.
- I have also invited Mr Royals to attend the next State Council meeting, and suggested that he set up a forum for all scheme members to ask questions about the changes.
- Subsequent to my writing to the scheme, I attended a briefing that Mr Royals delivered for day work staff at Adelaide Station on Thursday morning. I understand that similar briefings will be arranged for all shifts soon. I encourage everyone who can to attend those briefings. Significantly, information given at that session addressed some common misconceptions including:
- I have heard it suggested that members will lose the 4% additional contribution above SGC upon leaving a defined benefits model and adopting an accumulation model. Darren at his briefing indicated that the South Australian Government has recently guaranteed that they will continue to meet the additional four percent upon a scheme move to accumulation. This is a significant factor in modelling future outcomes under accumulation as against defined benefits.
I am making my own enquiries about this.
- The board are aware of potential unfairnesses arising from different outcomes for different cohorts of members based upon their age, and are considering options for addressing this unfairness. Final decisions have not yet been made, and will be based upon actuarial advice. The figures currently available on the website are not reflective in every case of what that final outcome might be.
Retirement income is obviously a critical issue, and one that members will have strong feelings about, and we understand that only some of the information being currently available is frustrating. Nevertheless I do think that it is important that reactions are based upon full information rather than assumptions. I recommend that members who consider it appropriate get financial advice on their situations, and steps they should take, once information is available.
Travel allowances case:
The case relating to SAMFS’s failure to pay travel allowances dating back to at least 2021 returned to Court last week.
Embarrassingly, SAMFS has not yet been able to write to us with their opinion about how the travel allowance provisions operate. This means that they have not meaningfully been able to even begin auditing the outstanding payments.
The Court has ordered that they write to the UFUSA with their proposed interpretations within the next 2 weeks.
As we have previously advised, the scale and scope of the likely underpayments is so significant that it is unlikely that we can individually be involved in every individual case. We are doing our best to have the issue advanced efficiently, and on an overall scale.
We will provide more information when it is available to us.
Happy Easter from the UFUSA:
The UFUSA wishes all members a happy and safe Easter period, and acknowledges and thank the members that will work over this weekend and public holidays serving our community.
In Solidarity,
