Our proactive correspondence and interactions with Royal Life Saving both at the National and State levels, is cause for concern due to the unclear mandate of Royal Life Saving. The confusion lies in the terminology and their definitions the organisation applies as well as the inherent contradiction with the organisation’s commercial activities.
The letter below declares that the RLS’ use of the term “Water Safety” should be interpreted as to exclude “Water Quality” and only be seen as used for the organisation’s sole focus on drowning prevention.
Yet, the contradiction remains in that the publicly funded organisation presents and markets itself as ‘the national authority’ for Water Safety does commercially run ‘Technical Aquatic Operator Training courses’ (which in themselves are not adequately meeting the State Health guidelines). These Technical Operator Courses are held at facilities that in themselves are not compliant with their respective State Government Health Guidelines, IE. the training operation is a shambles!
The financial reporting of Royal Life Saving Australia and its state based member organisations, makes no sense at all, further adding to the confusion and questioning its leadership. The national organisation reports revenues of $4.6M, NSW (which appears to include TAS???) $800K+ and VIC Victoria’s LSV $14.2M per annum. From an organisational structure, prudence and effectiveness viewpoint, these Public Benefits Organisations are a complete mess with too many Boards, Directors and Chiefs that are turning a blind eye to the abysmal state of public pool water quality in their own ranks, plus affecting the children in their own families…!
Lastly we note that Royal Life Saving should be congratulated for the excellent work they do undertake in the drowning prevention space, along with the positive results realised.
They should however cease the use of the term water safety, and cease the operator training operations if this does not responsibly include water quality at public pools and swim schools, given that more children die from asthma, than they do from swimming in public pools!
The confusion is on you, Royal Life Saving Australia…
