Emergency Management Documents

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (15:14): My question is again to the Minister for Emergency Services. When will the 12 out of 20 key emergency management documents relied upon by the SES that are either in draft or concept form be completed?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health, Minister Assisting the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (15:14): As the member alludes to in that internal report that the SES did, there were a number of different operational documents that they identified that needed to be updated, or more work had needed to be done, or the documents were still in draft form or that there were new documents that were envisaged of being written in the future that hadn't been done yet. So a whole lot of work was identified from their internal perspective, and I congratulate the SES on going through that process of looking at their own response to that emergency situation and that flood event across South Australia as well as the storms event that happened last year, because it was the busiest year on record for the SES.

In terms of those specific issues about the policies and procedures, I am advised by the SES that work to address the recommendations related to incident management doctrine and policies is well advanced, with five of those already completed. Additional planning and coordination officers, recruited as part of the Towards a Flood Resilient SA program, will be commencing within the next few weeks and contribute to the agency's capacity to undertake additional planning across the state.

Two of the recommendations relate to development of response plans relevant to catchment areas, and those are specific pieces of work that are underway and expected to be completed early next year. I understand one of them is the Gawler River catchment, which has obviously had significant flood events that have happened over previous years. To develop a management plan obviously is something more than just the SES. There is a whole range of different agencies and councils and stakeholders that need to be involved in that process, so that work is underway.