ALBURY'S Volunteer Rescue Association unit captain says police divers searching for those lost in Border waters makes sense as the jobs are overwhelmingly recoveries instead of rescues.
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Paul Marshall, who is also a Wodonga police officer, says his unit no longer has any qualified divers.
His was commenting after Corowa's Peter Wright resigned as the VRA's diving operation co-ordinator, having in the last 18 months failed to convince state chiefs of the need to keep diving.
With a $6000 basic training cost, the need to have a diver, back-up and supervisor on each job and suitable credentials, Mr Marshall said it was difficult.
"It's not just a matter of putting them in water and getting hours up, it's also getting qualifications up to speed and meeting standards of police and their standards are very high," Mr Marshall said.
"They have to fulfil protocols and evidentiary needs and if you're recovering a body it's going to be a coronial inquiry and they're going to need photographs.
"Diving is 99 per cent recovery, so having people here is not an urgent thing, it's very rarely a rescue job.
"Divers are not rescuers, divers are recovery."
Mr Marshall said under a cross border memorandum police could now respond from Melbourne to Murray River jobs and their NSW counterparts had a dedicated plane to access rather than having to travel by road from Sydney in the first instance.
But Mr Wright dismissed the view urgency was not central to finding those missing in water.
"I think that's absolute crap," Mr Wright said.
"When you see family absolutely distraught on the bank there's a need to deliver that service and it's always been the motivation for volunteers divers.
"If you get in the water and start looking and get a result in a day or a few hours how much relief does that bring to the family?"
Mr Marshall said the police focus for Border dive jobs had evolved over the past five years, however he did rule out a VRA diving capability being revived.
"It's risk versus rewards, it's cost versus outcomes, so we have to explore every option," he said.
However, Mr Wright, who began rescue diving in 1980, says the Corowa and Albury VRA units were the last in NSW to undertake diving and he can't see it returning.
Tocumwal and Deniliquin had divers until rules became too great many years ago.