The Queensland Fire and Rescue – Senior Officers Union of Employees (SOU) is a professionally led strategic industrial organisation operating within the industrial relations framework in Queensland. In the interests of its members, the SOU leads and coordinates the direction and profile of senior fire officers, with the key goals of improving and influencing the broader working and industrial environment that impacts its members.

The SOU publication Fire & Rescue Senior Officers- Strategic, Operational, and Tactical leaders of the Queensland Fire & Emergency Services provides further detail on the role of senior officers within Queensland Fire and Emergency Services. 

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SOU President

Adrian Stafford

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Welcome to the Queensland Fire and Rescue – Senior Officers Union of Employees (SOU) website. The SOU is dedicated to improving and protecting the interests of senior fire officers regardless of rank, role or location.

As senior officers we hold unique and influential positions within our organisation. We are not only the caretakers of respected traditions, culture and history but we balance this with the daily need to drive change and improvements to meet community expectations. Our positions are genuinely multifaceted where we are required to be corporate managers and leaders one moment and then commanders of complex and hazardous fires, hazmat incidents, rescues and deployments the next.

I believe that it is crucial these skills and knowledge are acknowledged, respected and compensated appropriately.

However, it is also important that we personally keep ourselves up to date with the changes that continually take place in risks, training, technology, procedures and equipment if we are to stay at the top of our game. We owe it to those whom we serve to be the best we can.

Your union is a professional institution and as President I am determined to ensure that the SOU remains active and relevant in today’s modern fire and rescue service. I urge you to read our objectives to fully appreciate what we stand for. Ultimately a senior officer’s position should be acknowledged as a leader in the realms of community safety and should be something that every recruit firefighter aspires to. We can do this together as a united group of people with common goals and needs.

The SOU is the only industrial organisation that is solely focussed on the issues of senior fire officers and I invite all eligible staff members to join us; I am sure you will not be disappointed.