Grievance Debate

Emergency Services

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:10): With the end of the bushfire season and the start of winter coming on with the wild weather, we really need to recognise and value our volunteers in the CFS and the SES. There was no better example than last Monday, when South Australia was hit with gale force winds, high tides, flooding, trees down and building damage. It was an absolute disaster, but our CFS and SES volunteers were out there with their MFS colleagues doing an exceptionally good job responding to the many, many hundreds, some people said over 1,000, calls for assistance.

The problem we have is that the dispatching of SES and CFS to calls is not as coordinated as it should be. In 2007, there was an MOU (a memorandum of understanding) signed by the three chief officers of the CFS, MFS and SES, which said that the 'nearest and fastest appropriate resource will be responded'. That memorandum also then went on to say:

The above principle will be used in future revisions of despatch policies and principles, including the development of the database for the South Australian computerised despatch system.

What we are seeing is SES volunteers racing all over the metropolitan area into the Hills where other, faster, closer resources who are trained in exactly the same manner to respond to these calls could be used. Our SES volunteers are being run ragged. They are exhausted, and we need to make sure that we are supporting them with better triaging and a better callout system—a system that was agreed to in 2007, not one that we have now that is abusing and not appreciating our volunteers.

Unfortunately, comments that have been in the media and comments I have made are being completely misconstrued by some people out there. Comments are being put on social media which are defamatory, but I am a big boy, so I can wear that sort of stuff. There are comments that have been put on even as late as today by people who are signing as leaders of SES units which, unfortunately, are inaccurate. They are quite wrong and misinformed. I am really looking forward to speaking to these people to make them understand what is going on.

I was actually accused of releasing on a social media site people's personal and private information about emergency callouts. Let me tell you that Google SAGRN Paging is there for everybody to see, all the time, any time of the day or night. Let's just look what happened at three minutes past midnight this morning.

In response to 15 cows loose on Maidment Road at Meadows, where was I at three minutes past midnight this morning? In bed. I got out of bed and went and helped put the cows back. Twenty kilometres away, the Strathalbyn SES were called out to do exactly the same thing. We had the cows put back. The poor sods from Strathalbyn SES had a stopped call turnaround. This was two hours out of their lives. They could have stayed in bed, as we had the job done. Meadows CFS was there. Echunga CFS, which was six kilometres away, not 20 kilometres away, could have been called if we had needed further assistance.

We need to see better coordination, and this is what this is about. It is not about in any way degrading or denigrating our volunteers, the way they work and the way they push themselves to the limit to serve South Australians. This is about making sure that the minister in the other place recognises the fact that there are changes that are needed. We need to make those changes today because our volunteers are tired. They are exhausted. We have a long winter coming with another bushfire season coming up. We want our volunteers to be there when they are recalled. We want them rested, we want them relaxed, so they can respond.

When the bells drop, when the pager goes, our volunteers are running towards the emergency whilst other people are running away. They are risking their lives, they are risking their family time and in some cases they are risking their jobs to serve this community. We need to make sure that we are not in any way using our volunteers for a political purpose, and there is no way I would ever do that. I am on the record as having fought for and continuing to fight for not having one fire service and for also recognising the terrific individual services, recognising the fact that we need to have the volunteer charters in legislation, and recognising the fact that our volunteers deserve the best equipment and training that they can possibly get.

We need to make sure that our volunteers are not being abused by this government—because they are. They are being used, abused and taken for granted. The government thinks they will not walk away; well, they are getting very tired. They need to be recognised for the work they are doing. This government does not get volunteers—they do not understand them. Certainly, the ex-shoppies union minister next door has no idea.

I thought the previous minister was a rookie. Well, this bloke is rank rookie; he has no idea. He needs to understand that the Lobethal SES is not in the southern suburbs. He needs to understand that these people are volunteering and making massive sacrifices for this community. It would cost us billions of dollars to replace them. We must value our volunteers.