COMMUNITY SAFETY DIRECTORATE

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Police. Can the minister give details—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs VLAHOS: —about the Community Safety Directorate and what it is doing to ensure better collaboration across the community safety portfolios?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:33): I thank the member for Taylor for her question. I know she is a very strong supporter of the emergency volunteer brigades out in her electorate, and I have had the opportunity to visit those brigades with her.

On 14 August I announced the establishment of a Community Safety Directorate in South Australia, as I told the house yesterday in my response to the member for Morphett's question, and I was very pleased to appoint Tony Harrison, the former assistant commissioner of police, to the position of Director-General of Community Safety. As I said, Tony has already brought energy, expertise and ideas to the role that will see the directorate coordinate and implement processes aimed at a safer community for everyone.

The directorate will provide strategic advice and high level coordination across police, correctional services, emergency services and road safety, and oversee the development and implementation of policy. The directorate will not have any responsibility for budgetary or operational matters which clearly lie with our community safety agencies; these responsibilities will quite rightly remain with the relevant chief executives.

As Director-General, Tony Harrison will also take on the role as chief executive of the South Australian Fire and Emergency Services Commission (SAFECOM). The current Chief Executive, David Place, has been instrumental in the directorate to this point and has been appointed Deputy Director-General. The directorate will be a division within the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion, alongside the State Recovery Office, which will see planning, emergency management and recovery all under the same umbrella.

To support the ongoing work and direction of the directorate, a chief executives leadership council will be convened along with a senior officers working group to ensure that all those agencies, associations and unions with a vested interest in the operation of the directorate get a say on how we deliver real benefits to our community. Five employees have been seconded from the Department for Correctional Services, SAFECOM, the CFS, the MFS and the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure to work within the directorate. It will be a small team working on big ideas.

South Australia has enjoyed relatively few major disasters in recent years through a combination of good fortune, good planning and hard work. We have also seen a reduction in road deaths and victim-reported crime. We have the lowest return-to-prison rate in the nation. With a track record like this, it would be easy to sit back and admire our achievements. Instead, we are asking the hard questions about how we can take these achievements to the next level.

This may include improved support for volunteers, many of whom in regional areas are simultaneously involved in multiple agencies; better coordination of public safety messages that are issued by different agencies at peak times; cooperation on IT and infrastructure projects; leveraging the expertise of police, the DPTI, the CFS, the MFS and the SES when dealing with issues around road safety; coordinating responses to inquiries and reviews; and developing sector-wide policy with input from all agencies from the ground up.

In 1838, South Australia established the first centralised police service in the world. We were a world leader. Back in those days the police also helped put out fires, transport the ill and injured and locked people up in mobile prison cells. Twenty-four years later the MFS was born and, over the next 150 years, the process of specialisation continued and we developed some of the finest community safety agencies in the world.

This directorate is not about reinventing the wheel: it is about rediscovering the common purpose and shared heritage of the tens of thousands of officers, employees and volunteers who choose to put their community before themselves. It will also make sure that after 175 years we continue to show the world how it is done.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

Dr McFetridge: Pig's bum.

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Morphett! I know you are used to animal parts but, really, that was not befitting parliament.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Morialta.