Wear Orange Wednesday

Ms VLAHOS (Taylor) (12:03): By leave, I move my motion in an amended form:

That this house—

(a) recognises the State Emergency Service (SES) Wear Orange Wednesday, or WOW Day, occurring on 18 November 2015;

(b) values the work that the SES do on behalf of our community; and

(c) encourages everyone to show support to our SES volunteers by wearing orange.

I would like to raise with the house the matter of Wear Orange Wednesday on Wednesday 18 November 2015 or Wear Orange to Work Day (WOW Day). Last year, I participated in this and several people in the parliament joined in the social media campaign. I urge all South Australians on this day to wear orange to show their support for the wonderful work that is being undertaken on our behalf by the state's 1,660 State Emergency Service volunteers. This is a great opportunity to celebrate the great work done by SES volunteers. I know how much we value their service.

Certainly, in my electorate in outer Adelaide, I have hosted the Edinburgh SES team at parliament for their Christmas break-up and they are never far from my thoughts whenever the seasons change and an emergency incident occurs or when I see things come up on my Twitter feed that I know they will be attending on our behalf. This is a great opportunity for us to celebrate their valued service.

The SES is spread across 67 units around the state, and last financial year they responded to more than 5,200 incidents. This represents an estimated 72,000 hours of volunteer work—a remarkable contribution to our community. SES volunteers are called out in all types of weather, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to fallen trees, to floods, to road crashes, to rescues and to all manner of emergencies. The SES has also provided critical support to other agencies, such as the CFS, the MFS and SA Police. I note that during the Sampson Flat fire many SES units were called upon to help provide critical support to the community that was needed more broadly at that time.

SES volunteers have an enormous enthusiasm for what they do in helping people when it is most needed. Not only do our SES volunteers respond to rescues, they commit many hours to skills maintenance and training to ensure they can carry out the wide range of skills and tasks that are required of them. I have seen the men and women at the Edinburgh SES unit practising patient retrieval and other skills on a weekly basis.

The SES also supports people beyond our local communities. The SES sent 64 personnel to New South Wales in April and May this year to assist with the local New South Wales emergency services agencies following storms and flash flooding in the Hunter Valley/Newcastle area. Earlier this year, the Minister for Emergency Services and the SES Chief Officer launched the new SES book, In Times of Need. Not only does this book provide a greater understanding of the SES history but there is also a great sense of pride in this lovely state organisation. Minister Piccolo and I have copies of this book available for you and your electorate offices upon request.

SES volunteers are extremely worthy of our support, and I hope to see as many people as possible, including those in the parliament, wearing orange on Wednesday 18 November, as I will be. Please place your support behind these fantastic people and spread the word. I remember last year seeing minister Piccolo and the Premier wearing orange ties in this place, and it would be fantastic to see the whole chamber filled with orange ties this year to support our SES volunteers and to show them that we value their contribution, which is truly awe-inspiring—indeed, in fact, 'WOW for orange'.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (12:07): I rise to support this motion, as I imagine every member in this place will, to wear orange on Wednesday 18 November this year. While I do not have an SES tie—and that is a big hint to Chief Officer Chris Beattie to give me an SES tie, which I would like to wear on the day—I do have a couple of ties that have orange in them. We will see what else we can do to make sure that we recognise the real 'wow' factor that is around our SES volunteers.

Being in the CFS, I work with the SES at the coalface, attending accidents and incidents in the middle of the night, sawing up trees. It is amazing to see the dedication of our SES volunteers in South Australia. There are around 1,600 volunteers, and I think the member for Taylor said that they attended over 5,000 incidents and spent over 70,000 hours at those incidents. I actually find that figure quite low.

Given the number of incidents that I go to with the CFS and either Mount Barker or Strathalbyn SES, also being co-respondents, I would have thought those hours would be much higher than that. If you add on the number of hours of training and the number of hours these volunteers put into public relations, I think you could triple that, if not increase it even further. To value our volunteers by recognising them on Wear Orange Wednesday is something that we all should do.

There are about 40,000 SES volunteers across Australia, and they go to floods, storms, and road crash rescue, which is a very important part. I had just visited the Murray Bridge SES a few days before the tragic accident on Swanport Bridge. I know, from my personal involvement with road crash rescues through the CFS, that it is never a pleasant experience, but that one was particularly grisly and I really felt for those people I had been speaking to a few days before that incident.

As a kid, I used to see the police cadets out there all the time at crime scenes and doing searches for lost people, but now it is all the volunteers through the SES. God bless them, they do it willingly, they do it freely and they do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week if required. They develop skills in swift water rescue for times of flood, and it is very dangerous working in swift water trying to rescue somebody who is probably panicking and wants to grab onto you so that you are as likely to drown as they are if things are not handled properly. The skill and determination they show is just fantastic.

Of course, how often do we see, even in our Adelaide Hills, people taking what you would think is a relatively minor fall of two or three metres down a slope and then having to be rescued because of some injury or other adverse event. Who is there to do it? The SES are there with their equipment and training. They get people out of that precarious position, off to safety and then return them for further treatment if they require it.

We should also remember that this is Bushfire Action Week. As the member for Taylor said, Sampson Flat was an example of where the CFS and SES worked with many other agencies, but particularly the SES are always there doing the logistics. I remember going up to the oval at Littlehampton during the Sampson Flat bushfire and the SES volunteers were there setting up the tent city. It was a stinking hot day. There was only a relatively small group of them, but they were there. They had been there a long time setting up this tent city, doing it quite willingly and more than happy to do it. I know that they would have been there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, helping out with the whole process and logistics of handling that emergency. In that case, it was Sampson Flat, but we know that in other cases it is floods, storms and all those sorts of incidents that they are very well trained to handle.

I think that all of us in this place will try to do what we can, not only on 18 November but all year round, to support our SES units and to make sure that we do recognise their fantastic efforts, their enthusiasm and their dedication to serve the people of South Australia through the SES. Can I just say, on behalf of everybody on this side, that we do really appreciate them, as does everyone in this place. It is one of those areas where we can be completely apolitical and just get out there and support our SES volunteers, particularly on 18November, Wear Orange Wednesday.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (12:12): I too rise to support the motion to recognise Wear Orange Wednesday, or WOW Day, on 18 November. Like the member for Morphett, as a CFS volunteer I am very proud to be part of that establishment. It is one of the community volunteering exercises I do with pride, as with all my volunteering, but this does come with a difference—that is, there are times when you put your life on the line for others. There are times when you do have to make decisions to help others, to save others and to make your community a better, safer place. I think the idea of recognising our emergency service volunteers and organisations with WOW Day is just a great initiative.

Obviously, the State Emergency Service has a great history. They are a very proud group of people, and they have been, I guess, a little compromised with the government's decision to increase the emergency services levy, as well as the double hit, where they are paying huge increases in that levy as well as giving up their time to be a good community person, as does the business that employs those volunteers to allow them to go out to help when in an emergency situation.

Our volunteer base is often taken for granted and I think this initiative to recognise those volunteers and organisations is a great initiative. Today, that is why I have stood up to make a small contribution and recognise some of the work that they do. As I have said in a previous contribution regarding road safety remembrance day, some of the situations they have to put themselves in and some of those emergency callouts they have to attend to deal with road crashes and emergency situations such as storms, fire, flood and all the unforeseen situations can sometimes cause an everlasting effect to be etched into their brain. Whether it is assisting to get people out of cars after an accident, pulling large trees off houses, putting tarpaulins over roofs, dealing with sandbags when we have a flood and dealing with storms that often impact our lives, those emergency services are there to help. They are there to resurrect what was and to help rebuild what we have.

Obviously, I would like to acknowledge the good work of all our emergency services but, in particular, in the Riverland and Mallee. The six units in the Riverland operations and the support units are headed up by the good work of Danny Wood. I called the branch that I am a member of at Monash to speak to Dave de Grancy and ask him a couple of questions, but he is giving up his time and is in the emergency room at headquarters in Berri. That is the sort of thing that these volunteers do. They give their time for the betterment of their community to keep their community safe but, if the community has undergone a trauma, they are there to help pick up the pieces and rebuild.

Obviously, 112 members in the Riverland is a great accolade for the community—representing a very large area but, again, they are prepared to put themselves out to make sure that they get to where the emergency is. I note that we had 12 road crash rescue calls in the year to date and 43 emergency callouts, and each unit is training constantly to keep up-to-date in order to be able to perform those emergency duties. I work hard at this job and, sadly, it does not allow me to get to the training nights very often and it does not allow me to get to the training mornings on a Sunday very often, but I make sure that, in any capacity that I can help, I am there to be part of that team and part of the volunteer base that helps my community—as is every volunteer, and we will be paying homage to the emergency services on 18 November.

I would urge everyone to get a piece of orange clothing, whether it is a tie, shirt, socks or jocks. Whatever it is, get it on and make sure that you stand up and acknowledge the emergency services on Wear Orange Wednesday Day.

An honourable member: Jocks on the outside?

Mr WHETSTONE: Well, I haven't got orange bras, but I'm sure someone might have, and they can get them on.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think you need my protection, member for Chaffey.

Mr WHETSTONE: It is all about being a part of it. It is all about acknowledging the great work that they do. I urge every community member and every person in this house to get some orange on. I was an orange grower for a lot of years. We can always buy an orange, put that piece of orange in your mouth and give us a big orange smile, and that is a good way of being part of the day. For those of you who have not tried it, try it. Cut an orange into quarters and, when you bite it, leave it in your mouth and get someone to take a photo. Put it up on social media. It just shows that you are a part of the day. I commend the motion to the house and look forward to 18 November.

Ms VLAHOS (Taylor) (12:19): I would like to thank all the members who have spoken on this motion today to support Wear Orange Wednesday on 18 November and supporting our state emergency services volunteers. I know that when I was a new member in this place a little over five years ago I got to meet the Edinburgh crew under John Lawrence who had just arrived as their CO, and they made me feel so welcome. I know the work they have done over many, many years, and I see their work regularly on Facebook as well.

They are magnificent people and they put themselves in the way of harm, as the member for Morphett said earlier. They do place themselves in the way of harm often and sometimes multiple times over their long volunteering hours that they give. I would also ask the members here to remember that it is not only our veterans' community but also members of the emergency services who come in contact with post-traumatic stress disorder by being volunteers.

Indeed, a world-leading study was just released yesterday outlining the impacts of this on their lives and setting up a criteria of guidelines to help assist all of our first responders as they care for our community and give so many much of their time out of their work hours and time away from their family to protect us, protect our property and to rescue those in need.

Please, on the 18^th wear orange, join in the celebration of their contribution to our community in recognising what they do for us. I commend the motion to the house.

Motion carried.