Bills

Fire and Emergency Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 28 November 2018.)

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:41): This is an interesting amendment bill. Of course, the short history of this amendment bill is that it turned up in this house—

The SPEAKER: Is the member for Giles the lead speaker?

Mr HUGHES: I might well be.

The SPEAKER: I will take that as a yes until further notice, thank you.

Mr HUGHES: I am more than willing to take the lead. The bill was introduced into this house last week with completely clean hands, it would appear, when it came to any effort to consult on it, which was pretty disgraceful. You would wonder whether anyone opposite had been consulted about the bill because I am absolutely sure that nobody out in the farming community had been consulted.

The Hon. C.L. Wingard: Five years ago you started working on these, Eddie.

Mr HUGHES: How many years ago?

The Hon. C.L. Wingard interjecting:

Mr HUGHES: Five years ago is a big gap.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HUGHES: I think some of the members opposite—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Giles is being provoked.

Mr HUGHES: I am very much provoked, and I thank you for your protection. It is interesting that the peak bodies, Grain Producers SA and others, did not feel as though they had been consulted when it came to the bill. It has been said a few times that farmers in this state are incredibly responsible. They have been operating under a code of conduct and that code of conduct has worked quite effectively over an extended period of time.

Some people might feel as though this is a bit of overreach on the part of the government and the CFS. That might be the case or it might not be the case, so we are more than willing to tease out those issues. As the minister might be aware, it was our intent yesterday to introduce a motion into the house, but with the way the cards were played by those opposite we did not get the opportunity to do that.

I think it is a good response that the member for Flinders moved the motion to refer this to a select committee, but I have to say that it is probably something that was not needed if effective consultation had happened beforehand. It was interesting that the bill was introduced a day after four members crossed the floor on three occasions. Four members crossed the floor on three occasions—I will repeat that four members crossed the floor on three occasions—and they did so on the basis of a lack of consultation. On that occasion, there was actually an election promise that there would be consultation and that consultation did not occur.

I am more than happy to see this go to a select committee because that is what we intended to do in relation to this amendment bill. It is good that there will be a Liberal member, a Labor member and I think a crossbencher, the member for Frome, on that select committee. So we will get to hear from the farming community. We will hear from the peak bodies and others what their views are. We will also hear from the CFS and the professionals in that area about the merits or otherwise of this legislation.

If this had been handled in a different way, if the consultation had occurred in a timely fashion before the introduction of the bill, we would not need to discuss this here and now and we would not need a select committee. There is an incredibly important lesson there. I think it is an important lesson because I am someone from a regional community. I have been involved in fairly metrocentric consultation processes in the past, where you get the great and powerful and the wise from the metropolitan area coming out to the regions to consult.

Over an extended period of time, I have been exposed to a number of those consultation processes. Some of them have been adequate, some of them have been good and some of them have been incredibly poor—tick-a-box type processes. What that does for those of us who live out in the regions is engender a degree of scepticism and, even worse, a degree of cynicism about consultation processes.

It is important that when ministers, ministers' officers and departments undertake a consultation out in regional communities, and indeed in the metropolitan area, they do it properly. I support the amendment bill going to the select committee. Let us thrash it all out. Hopefully, we will then come back to this house with a piece of legislation that we can support in a bipartisan fashion, with the crossbenchers on board as well. Nearly always it is my preference to work out problems, do your homework and come up with a result that is good for the people of South Australia.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:47): I rise to speak on the bill and support the intent of this government to provide all who work so hard to keep our community safe with all the support they need to be effective firefighters. Keeping communities safe is a prime responsibility of any government. I rise today in support of the vital collaborative effort that is needed from so many across the state to ensure this responsibility is met.

In the Narungga electorate, brigades of volunteers across all communities and districts assist with the provision of emergency services. To say that CFS crews are vital is an understatement. We all remember the catastrophic Pinery fire near Mallala and Balaklava in November 2015. I have talked about that twice already today in this chamber and, as devastating as it was, it stretched everyone to the limit, killed two people and burnt out 85,000 hectares. The area is still recovering.

I drove through there recently with a constituent and the scars remain and are quite remarkable. The charred trees along the side of the road must provide a daily reminder to those who lived through that experience of the ordeal they endured. Even the plethora of brand-new houses that now populate the area must be a reminder of all the homes that were lost in that terrible fire. It was a dark day in the Adelaide Plains' history, but excitingly there are currently plans afoot to erect a memorial at Grace Plains to commemorate that dark day. I congratulate Mr Peter March and the group working towards erecting that memorial and look forward to seeing it in its full glory.

In April, another serious bushfire occurred in the Narungga electorate at Stansbury, which saw everyone swing into action again with farmer water units and dozens of volunteer CFS from local brigades working to get ahead of the blaze which was only three kilometres north of the town and ran uncontrolled towards the St Vincent Highway. There was no way such bushfires could be controlled quickly without locals putting their own lives at risk and pitching in. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that particular fire was the result of a burn-off that got out of control. They can be quite dangerous when that does happen.

Another more recent fire, this time threatening the township of Maitland, occurred just a couple of weeks ago. Given my electorate office is in Maitland, we saw the action close up and personal and the alert system at work. As I said, I will talk on that later.

We had a harvester fire in Mundoora on 1 November. In this case, the farmer parked his harvester because conditions were worsening. It had been parked for three to four hours before it caught alight. The farmer was in town at the shops and completely unaware until he arrived home. Fortunately, and again thanks to our CFS volunteers from Port Broughton, Mundoora and Ward Hill, as well as 25 farm firefighting units, the fire was contained quickly before it did any damage. Sometimes, despite following all the rules and procedures, as this farmer did, accidents are unavoidable and will happen inevitably.

Of course, recently an out-of-control fire was burning near Minlaton, which was caused by lightning during that frightening storm of a few weeks ago. Not much can be done to prevent that, but that fire alone required 100 CFS volunteers alongside water bombers and farm units, which minimised the damage to 400 hectares. We certainly have a lot to be thankful for on Yorke Peninsula and the Adelaide Plains because of our local CFS groups. I would like to acknowledge in particular group officers Matthew McDonald, David Bussenschutt, Andrew Cadd and Steve Cornwall, as well as every other volunteer and group officer around the electorate. We have a tremendous group of volunteers in Narungga.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr ELLIS: He does a terrific job, David Bussenschutt. It is a difficult time for all of them. As I said, I would like to take this opportunity to thank them wholeheartedly. I support this bill's intent, which is to ensure that all that can possibly be done to prevent such fires occurring in the first place is done for the protection and wellbeing of all, including the CFS crews and farmer units that it takes to control such fires.

I particularly support the establishment of a select committee, which I understand to be the direction in which this government is heading, which specifically addresses questions from the farming industry and Grain Producers SA relating to the consideration of amendments to section 82(2), which include new powers to allow a CFS officer or a superior to direct a person to refrain from carrying on any activity deemed to be presenting great risk to cause fire, to legally reduce the risk of a fire starting through inappropriate use of equipment or activities being undertaken.

I welcome that call for the establishment of a select committee and am particularly pleased that there is representation, or likely to be representation, on it by regional MPs. It is exceedingly important, I think, that this committee is populated with people who understand the challenges faced by farmers because the contentious issue here is indeed harvesting. It is pleasing to hear the member for Giles imply that the member for Frome will also, hopefully, join the committee. Hopefully, he himself joins that committee. He would be a tremendous addition.

We need a committee that has people who understand things both from the farmers' perspective and from the perspective of the CFS. I am certain that those members from this side of the chamber who populate that committee will have that insight. I look forward to making a submission to my learned colleagues and encouraging the plethora of constituents from Narungga who have contacted me on this issue to do so as well. The proposed amendments expand on current powers which, to my mind, work quite well. Being a regional MP, I can vouch for the efficiencies of the current system, but, as in all things, improvements can always be made. Thus I look forward to the findings of the select committee.

The Pinery fire itself was not started by a harvester but reportedly by a car battery left near a wire fence in a paddock on a property. The Minlaton fire started from unavoidable lightning and the Stansbury fire started from a burn-off which jumped the boundaries, so there are instances of other fires being started. However, the recent fire near Maitland was started by a harvester, but it is noted in this contribution that that was on a day that was not announced as a fire ban day, so it is accepted that sometimes such events just happen despite best efforts.

The best efforts are vast. I give the example of a local SMS alerting system currently in place on Yorke Peninsula, which is an initiative driven by local responsible farmers who are invested in each other and in together protecting their operations. The example shows how local information is crucial, that broadscale blanket bans can not only be inaccurate in ever-changing weather conditions but can drive angst among grain growers, especially when there are millions of dollars of grain yet to be harvested, losing quality, and thus price, quickly with unforeseen delays.

The text message system that notifies local users of current harvest fire danger index risk conditions is considered to work well across Yorke Peninsula and is successful because it is trusted. Specific data is connected locally via automated weather stations, of which there are 170 across South Australia. Such a system empowers local communities to make decisions relevant to them and allows for harvesting to occur to its fullest extent without delays, which naturally can be frustrating if they are not absolutely necessary.

I give the example of a council-wide ban that is called the night before but cannot be easily adjusted and circulated when conditions change—either worsening or improving—and often lasts for 24 hours. As the select committee works towards improvements in the fire risk mechanisms, I will highlight the practices that are already working. I give the example I have referred to: the SMS system developed by Agbyte, which is used on Northern Yorke Peninsula by some 360 recipients. Estimations are that over 700 farming businesses and community stakeholders utilise harvest FDI information generated by these Agbyte weather stations.

As such, the localised system is popular because it is trusted, accurate, reliable, up-to-the-minute information, meaning there are fewer occurrences of farmers pushing the limit to reap as much as possible fearing a blanket ban is coming. By using this system, there is confidence that, should advice be given to stop reaping, it is for a valid reason and likely to be for a specific period only as long as is absolutely necessary.

The system I cite is coordinated by a trusted person—in this case, David Bussenschutt—to make critical decisions, often in association with the CFS. In some regions, a group of farmers undertakes this task for a year and then rotates because the responsibility is taken very seriously and can be quite stressful. Having the human factor in the SMS alert chain is recognised as crucial to ensure data is up to date, as opposed to automated systems that can fail in effectiveness, resulting in irrelevant, inaccurate or old information being distributed. This leads to a lack of trust in the alert, and the advice is therefore not heeded.

There are over 30 public weather stations in the Agbyte network, but the majority are privately owned by grain growers. At this point, I have to acknowledge Leighton Wilksch for the work he has done on this initiative. This work was recently acknowledged when he won the prestigious Prime Super Agricultural Innovation Award. The fire danger alerting system communicates through text messages to farmers so that they better understand fire risk during harvest and can make more informed decisions. I have made the Minister for Emergency Services aware of Leighton's work, and I know he has communicated with the Minister for Agriculture. I will certainly be encouraging him to make a submission to the select committee if it is formed.

The relevant local data from the 50 or so weather stations dotted within my electorate, as part of the network of 170 specialised stations, allows for farmers to safely maximise their harvesting hours. With much of our grain industry working within 20 kilometres of the coast, conditions vary greatly from those inland, so the local weather station network empowers users to make sound decisions about harvest fire risk. Thus, it is recognised that the majority of farmers operate responsibly and comply with the existing harvesting code of practice, and they are commended for it.

In my view, the best part is that this is a self-regulated policy that works exceedingly well for the most part. The view of these farmers, particularly in the areas that have diligently worked to install these text messaging systems, is that they do not need to rely on government regulation or police intervention; they simply need to regulate themselves. I think it is great that cross-sections of our farming industry get on with doing it themselves.

It is a win-win situation, too, because farmers I know feel as though full fire ban days are cumbersome, not agile enough and deprive farmers of scarce, valuable harvesting time. With this text messaging system, farmers can be warned when the fire danger index is too high for harvesting. My understanding is they can also be told when conditions are abating and it is safe to resume harvesting. This could only be done with localised, personalised and accurate weather testing.

Conditions on the coast may make it too windy to harvest, while conditions inland might be calmer and fine. Localised information needs to be provided. I hope the group that developed this initiative will present to the committee, as I said, when and if it is established. My view is that this is the future of managing fire risk: agile, localised, instantaneous reporting of weather conditions. The farming community I know is close-knit. Community members collaborate with like-minded effort, help each other and regularly down tools to assist each other when required.

That said, we are all at the mercy of nature, and accidents happen. It is understood that fires started by headers are often unlucky—a bearing failure, a header cone hitting a rock—and that reaping low-lying lentil crops can be particularly challenging, even on days that are not fire ban days. I am advised that was the case on 19 November, just a couple of weeks ago, when the fire near Maitland started.

It moved quickly and threatened the township, starting about five kilometres west of the town and, with a northerly wind, travelled south. I was not in the Maitland electorate office that day, but my staff related to me what was happening: the black sky of billowing smoke out their window, the regular alert text message advice they were receiving, the ABC broadcasting regular advice and the automated landline message they received—albeit with a robotic voice mispronouncing the word 'Maitland', but they got the gist of what it was trying to say.

They found it comforting watching the online emergency services scanning system, too. It alerted them about when and what crews and brigades were being sent from where to the incident, which in this case included five water bombers being dispatched. They found the system worked well overall, which was commendable to all, and the fire was contained without loss of property. It burnt out 50 hectares of grass, cropland and scrub.

With the electorate office being opposite the bakery, my staff could also tell when the crisis was over even before the system advised it. As soon as firefighting was no longer required, the multitude of farmer units that had helped put out the fire, driven by farmers who had got off their own headers and downed tools in a race to assist their fellow farmers in trouble, as is always the case in these instances, all started pulling up to the bakery and piling out of their utes and trucks to get a pie and a drink before going back to work. With 100 firefighters called in and 33 firefighting appliances, I can assure this place that the bakery did a roaring trade.

Such incidents remind us of the vast number of services and people it takes to keep our community safe and of the many people who are impacted by such incidents; thus, it is crucial that such systems are effective. They also reiterate the camaraderie and support systems that are in place in our rural communities, and that value the help of each other in any time of need, and the absolutely crucial and willing work undertaken by CFS members, many of whom are farmers themselves.

I will watch the passage of this Fire and Emergency Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2018 with interest and await the recommendations that come from the select committee if it is formed. I will also be encouraging Narungga constituents and stakeholders who have specific valuable knowledge and experience to bring to this topic to make submissions to the committee for consideration. I commend the formation of the select committee to the house and eagerly anticipate its findings.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (16:02): The member for Narungga makes a lot of sense.

Mr Ellis interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: He says, 'All the time.' The opposition has not been briefed on this bill by the minister. Indeed, the opposition was informed by the minister's office that it would not be debated this week, so something has occurred, and I will attempt to inform the house of what I think has happened. We all know what occurred last week when four brave and, I think, patriotic—

The Hon. A. Piccolo: Honourable.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: —and honourable members put the community before their party. Pretty tough stuff to do, but they did it. That had a number of impacts. One, obviously, was that the voice of farming communities in South Australia suddenly got a lot stronger very quickly. Kudos to those four brave members who stood up for farming communities. I bet a lot of other regional members who did not do that are thinking to themselves, 'Why didn't I, as well?'

What occurred then was that the government's legislative agenda was put into disarray. This bill was introduced quickly, and I have been informed by some members—I do not know the veracity of this, so I give it to the house as gossip—that this did not go to the party room meeting before it was introduced. I have been informed that there was no consultation on this bill and that at the party room meeting in the evening members were informed that the Labor Party would move for a select committee to be established on this bill.

I understand that the government very quickly moved to say that it would establish its own select committee; indeed, the Deputy Speaker himself gave notice in the house yesterday that today, at the conclusion of the second reading debate, he would move that it be moved to a select committee. That was a wise decision by the member for Flinders. Why? I will tell you why: the member for Narungga makes sense. Why? Regional communities have not been consulted on this bill.

You have to ask yourself: if hashtag #RegionsMatter so much, why were regional members not consulted on this? If the member for Narungga says that there was consultation with the grain growers' association, farming communities and regional members, then I take it all back, but I have received information that says that consultation was not done appropriately by the minister. That is concerning because this bill is basically a harvest ban.

I am not a farmer. I do not pretend for a moment to know the stresses and burdens of having to operate a family farm knowing that the future of that farm lies out there in a paddock, that the future of your family lies out there in a paddock and that the repayments to a bank lie out there in a paddock. I can imagine the anxiety and tension caused by a Liberal government bringing in a bill that outsources a decision about harvest to a third party.

The Hon. C.L. Wingard interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The minister shakes his head and says, 'No, it does not do that.' It is an interesting interpretation of what the bill does. Then again, I would not take much advice from the Minister for Emergency Services. What the member for Narungga has outlined, I think quite eloquently, is that regional communities are very keen to hear and give their views to a select committee, which means that this bill was never intended to operate this summer.

The Hon. C.L. Wingard: It was put together under your government.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The minister interjects that it was put together by our government. If it was put together by our government and the consultation was adequate, why the select committee?

The Hon. A. Piccolo: Why seven months?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Why wait seven months, just before summer? I suppose somewhere in there is the genius political strategy work of the Minister for Emergency Services, the hidden prince, the Machiavelli of the Liberal Party. Wait seven months, just before summer, then spring on the rural backbench a harvest ban.

The Hon. C.L. Wingard: Fixing up your mess.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Yelling out slogans is, I suppose, one way to avoid any type of critique. The opposition does support a select committee. We do think it is important that rural communities have a say on this, that rural communities are able to talk about the impacts of harvest bans on their work. But the minister assures the house that there has been adequate consultation, that the party room was well informed and that regional communities are unanimously in favour of all this. Well, we will see what the select committee finds.

I also find it interesting to see that there are Independent rural members in this parliament who would like to serve on that committee but the government will not allow them. I think this is also interesting. I know that the member for Mount Gambier and the member for Frome have a lot to contribute to regional communities and have a lot of experience, but the metropolitan Minister for Emergency Services, who knows all about harvest, is the one who is going to be telling—

Mr Odenwalder: Farmer Joe.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Farmer Joe, the friend of the farmer, who does not support a right to veto mining on farmers' land. I have to say that I think there is a bit of disquiet about the way the minister has conducted himself. It could be from rural members pulling their hamstrings crossing the road to speak to me about how he has stuffed it up, or it could be because of the phone calls I have received from rural members about their dissatisfaction with the way the government has conducted themselves. It could be because of the number of rural members who were very keen to know what our position would be on a select committee, whether we would support one or not and whether we could give them that answer before their party room meeting, which we did.

It was interesting to see the government actually begin to listen. The lesson in all this is that, rather than those four members who crossed the floor being traitors, self-indulgent or self-interested, what they have actually done is strengthen the arms of rural communities in South Australia within the government. But of course you have to ask yourself about those rural members who did not do that, who decided to stick with the miners and to stick with the metropolitan member who wants to bring in a harvest ban.

Those are the considerations and the tensions that are in the Liberal Party as we speak. I am sure the CFS and the agency in charge of our emergency response have very good reasons for the measures that are in the bill. I think it is beyond the minister to explain them to us, which is why his party, his government, have taken the decision away from him and given it to a select committee of this parliament. I think that is pretty humiliating to start with, but I do not think there is much that can humiliate the Minister for Emergency Services—pretty thick skin there.

But I have to say it will be interesting to see who the government nominates to be on the select committee and who will chair it. I hope the member for Narungga is on it because I think he has a passion for regional communities. I hope he is on the committee and is able to take evidence and inform this house in the select committee's report about the best way to improve this rushed bill. I am interested to know whether the member Finniss will be on the committee. I understand he will. He is probably a lot more compliant than other rural members. Perhaps he is more interested in climbing the greasy pole than other rural members who are prepared to perhaps shake the establishment and stand up for their local communities. There are slightly different ways of operating within the Liberal Party.

I do not, for one moment, pretend to understand the internal byzantine workings of the Liberal Party, but what I did see was a shift change last week and that change brings us to this select committee. I have to say, Mr Deputy Speaker, your community, more than most, knows the ravages of bushfire and the way bushfires are changing and the way communities respond to that, as does the member for Narungga, as do a lot of rural members. I think it is important that we hear the views of those communities.

I was fascinated to hear the member for Narungga talk about a blanket fire ban potentially not being the right solution for different parts of rural South Australia. But do you know what? That makes a bit of sense because there are some areas where there will be high winds and other areas where there will not be. Do we risk an entire harvest, an entire business, an entire family's future? With regard to risk mitigation, make no mistake about it, public servants and the department will do everything they can to minimise risk to the public and make the public safe. That does not necessarily help a farmer who has a very small window for harvest. I think what the member for Narungga is telling the house on behalf of his community is that that needs to be understood by not only the bureaucracy but the suburban minister in charge of this portfolio.

It is not the minister's fault that he is from suburban Adelaide—not at all. Not for one minute does anyone expect the Minister for Emergency Services to be an expert on harvest or rural firefighting. That is not his job. His job is to administer the act and give it the resources that are required to respond to these things. However, when you have in your caucus a wealth and depth of knowledge of rural communities, you would think maybe they would listen.

Had it not been for the events of last week, we would not be here today. Had it not been for the events of last week and those four brave members who crossed the floor, the bill would not be going to a select committee: the bill would be passing tonight and rural members would be out there in their communities explaining why the Liberal government has introduced a harvest ban without any consultation, without any advice or advanced warning to rural communities.

So I congratulate the shadow minister for regions, the honourable member for Giles, the four brave rural champions in the government and the Deputy Speaker on moving this amendment that is before the house, on which I will be speaking once it is actually considered by the house at the conclusion of the second reading contributions. Had it not been for them, the minister would have arrogantly done what the mining minister attempted to do, which is to just push through legislation simply because they are the government, they have the numbers and they will do what they like. I think that what we are now seeing is a democratisation of the Liberal Party, and that is the first step towards real independence.

The second step is independent thought—I think we have reached that now—and, of course, the third step is that they will stop being politicians and now become legislators, and we will see more and more amendments. If any member wants any advice about amending legislation, my office doors are always open. I am happy to assist regional members of the Liberal Party to amend government legislation in the best interests of their regional community. The Labor Party is here to help. We are the farmers' friends. We are here to assist regional communities hold the government to account.

On reading the editorial of The South Eastern Times, a paper that is part of the stable of The Border Watch—which is no friend of mine and no friend of the Labor Party—which said that this current government is dominated by city-centric moderates and that brave conservatives stood up in the interests of regional people, it brought a slight tear to my eye. Think of the courage it would have taken to stand up to Chris Pyne in his jackboots—to stand up to the moderates of the Liberal Party who attempt to dominate regional people.

Since the recent election, regional people were promised a lot. What they have received, which the member for Light will talk about in his remarks, are cuts. Despite what the government said, that the former government used regional country cabinets as a tool to try to get votes or PR, the answer to that is no. I can assure the house that we never thought on visiting Port Lincoln that Flinders would be in play for the Labor Party. I can assure members that when we visited the Riverland we never thought that we would win the seat of Chaffey. When we visited the South-East, we did not think that MacKillop and Mount Gambier were in play.

We did our job because cabinets are responsible for all 47 districts, not just the ones you hold; and cabinets should be seen across the entire state. There is something powerful about an entire cabinet sitting in a regional hall answering questions unfiltered—democracy in the raw, if you will—from regional people getting up and saying, 'These are the issues.' I remember when I was transport minister between 2013 and 2014—

The Hon. C.L. Wingard interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Again, the personal attacks on a bad day—yell it out. I could talk about how the minister was sacked as a sports journo, but I will not; that would be unfair.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Except, member for West Torrens, you will be talking about the bill at hand, will you not?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Exactly.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I think there is something very powerful about a regional community—

The Hon. C.L. Wingard: You were a taxidriver.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Again, criticising my experience because I drove taxis while at university—again, this sort of soft racism.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Yes, that is what it is. There is something powerful about a regional community being able to ask the transport minister, 'Which road did you come in on? What did you think of the quality of that road? On your way out, can you travel this road so that you can see the quality of that road.' There is something powerful about a regional community being able to take the Treasurer down to a local community that needs assistance, or speak to the water minister about an issue that they can see, touch and feel all at once, and there is something especially powerful about raising those issues in front of the Premier, and the Premier directing the minister at that time to deal with that person's concerns right then and there.

We invited to every country community cabinet the local member of parliament, and they came along. They were empowered, they were made to feel welcome and, of course, they were also able to bring delegations to the cabinet. What is wrong with that process to assist regional communities? If there had been more country cabinets, we would not be in this humiliating position of the minister having to have a select committee because he would have known about the issues that the member for Narungga raised, the issues the member for MacKillop may raise and the issues the member for Mount Gambier is going to raise about a harvest ban.

I am being told from regional members in this place and in the other place that this bill has excited a lot of attention in regional newspapers and regional communities about what it is attempting to do, which is why we are at this position. You just wonder: could we have avoided the humiliating situation of the minister being forced to set up a select committee by his party room if he had just done the job of actually asking regional members, 'How do we improve the bill? How does this impact on people? Do we need to put more resources into forecasting in regional South Australia? Do regional CFS stations need different types of equipment in place to deal with harvesting?' There is none of that. There is 'my way or the highway'.

Because of the independence now of some members of the government, the minister has been put on the highway—the highway to regional South Australia to go out and consult and to listen. Now, of course, he is having to listen to the concerns of regional South Australians, as he should have before this bill was put here. The proper process in a Westminster democracy for introducing legislation should be, obviously, to consult widely on legislation before you bring it to the parliament, before you bring it to the cabinet, before you bring it to the party room—not the other way around.

But this minister thinks, 'Ram it through cabinet, get it to the parliament, then go to the party room, then go and consult' is somehow appropriate. That is not good governance. That is poor governance, and you get poor outcomes from it. That is why we are in this situation now where we have to have a second reading speech after summer has started, because the minister tells us this is urgent, but it has to go to a select committee now because he did not do his job for the seven months over winter and spring to get this ready for the CFS to have this to go.

So the question then becomes: what happens if there is a disaster over summer because the government was not ready with the tools the emergency services say they need? Because of the poor planning, the poor foresight and the laziness of the minister, we have to have a select committee to consult with groups he should have consulted with first.

The Hon. C.L. Wingard interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Mumbling will not fix incompetence. I cannot put in what God left out, and that is why we are in this situation where the Labor Party will be supporting a select committee because of the minister's incompetence.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (16:22): I rise and am moved in part by the remarks of the member for West Torrens. It reminds me of the review of the late payments legislation, under the watch of the member for West Torrens whose attention span, it appears, has quickly run out after he has finished his own political jibing on this point—nothing like an opportunist.

In the case of the late payments legislation—another bit of legislation we fixed up in the early days of this government—and the 2013 act, which contemplated the automation of payments, a review was required to occur. In that case, the review occurred at the very last minute. The review led to no change.

Mr HUGHES: Point of order.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is a point of order. Member for Heysen, could you be seated.

Mr HUGHES: Relevance.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is relevance. Honestly, the member for Heysen is still in his first minute. I expect this is a preamble to his contribution on the bill. The member for Heysen.

Mr TEAGUE: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. In that case, the review came at the last moment. The review was cursory. It recommended no change because it was all a bit too hard, and it left us with the Orwellian titled Late Payment of Government Debts (Interest) Act, which did nothing of the sort and left us having to fix up the mess

In this case, we have precisely the same structure going on. We have section 149 of the Fire and Emergency Services Act requiring that a review occur and that it occur prior to a certain date in 2013. The reviewer, Mr Holloway, was required to review. That is very much the subject of what we are talking about here today, and I know that we have lost the attention span of the member for West Torrens but, for those who are present, we are focused on the review, the review that occurred five years ago.

The review duly occurred and was presented at the very last moment. Mr Holloway conducted a thoroughgoing review in accordance with section 149 of the act, as the act required. It would appear that the matter lay there for the better part of the next five years. As under the Late Payment of Government Debts (Interest) Act—something that we fixed up hastily, quickly and without fuss so that we move from an Orwellian environment to an actual environment in which outcomes are appreciated and received by business that deals with government in this state—we are now in an environment where we are dealing with the outcome of a 2013 review—

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

Mr TEAGUE: Yes, for those who are having trouble following, section 149 of the 2005 act required that a review occur. So far, so good? That review duly occurred and was then sat on by those on the other side, so it does not sit well in the mouths of the opposition in late 2018 to come into this house, and for the member for West Torrens to give dictation to those on this side of the house—

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Heysen, could you take a seat for a moment. The member for Light will have his opportunity in a moment, I am sure, and would appreciate the opportunity to be heard in silence; therefore, we will give that same opportunity to the member for Heysen.

Mr TEAGUE: As I was indicating, it does not sit well in the mouths of those on the opposition benches, and it particularly does not sit well in the mouth of the member for West Torrens, to be talking about attention to a thoroughgoing review of legislation and implementation of the outcomes of such a review where it is legislated. The track record on the opposition side is one of 16 years of government based upon mismanagement and inaction, as exemplified by reviews that took place under legislation, just one example of which I have drawn by way of comparison, particularly in light of the member for West Torrens' direct responsibility for the production of the review in that case.

None of the critique that we have heard from those on the opposition benches sits well in their mouths when it comes to the consideration of regional South Australia because those on the government benches are well and truly acquainted with, engaged with, understanding and in daily dialogue with those in the regions. For us, it does not take a leader's listening tour with a roster and taking a map to somewhere outside metro Adelaide to see if you can find something that is described as a regional area.

We live, breathe, work and operate in our electorates in the regions in South Australia and proudly so. So, when it comes to legislating in this area, we are consulting, interacting, living, breathing and receiving real feedback daily from those to whom we are responsible. Long may that be the case because that is what leads to timely action to reform based on reviews, as opposed to inaction over many years. That is precisely what leads to good thoroughgoing legislation that will have real beneficial effects in the interests of our volunteers and those in communities with whom those volunteers and emergency service providers interact and benefit from. Good legislation ensures that that interaction can happen in the most fruitful way possible.

We all know that the Holloway review is a document that was before the previous government for many years and led to no change; we know that. We presume, because the contributions so far from those opposite appear to focus on some notion that there has been little notice of this legislation, or that they were unaware or that somehow this has come to them lately, that they have had the benefit of this review for all those years yet have done nothing. As in so many other cases in this 54^th parliament, the opposition, in my view, would be far better off perhaps providing a brief apology, sitting back and getting out of the way so that the new government can get on with ensuring that it implements legislation for all South Australians.

We know that the report on the review outlines a number of important recommendations, and those recommendations go squarely to addressing issues related to the provision of emergency services throughout our state. They include the question of employment insecurity for those who are committed to volunteering in local brigades, with the result that in some cases they find themselves absent from work when they are providing that volunteer effort to respond to an emergency; the structure and framework in which breaches of permit conditions imposed by authorised officers occur and how that is dealt with; and, as one would expect with a bill that has been on the books for nearly 15 years, the various technical issues raised by the emergency services organisations from time to time. They might go to apparent ambiguities or anomalies in the way the legislation under which they have to operate applies.

It seems to me to have been a wholly sensible approach to structure matters in such a way that a review of the act ought take place a reasonable time after the enactment of the bill has occurred, and what we are left with is a situation in which many years of inaction are now being addressed. It is natural, in my view, that as a new government we would want to have a thorough look at all aspects of the environment affected by a review of this kind and that, in implementing this new legislation that will reform the act and also deal in a limited way with the Emergency Management Act 2004, we are looking to improve the ability of the emergency services to deliver public safety outcomes at a minimal cost to government and to ensure that the community service provided by those volunteers is one that is backed by the government's commitment to them and appreciation for their voluntary service in the interests of the safety of the community.

In terms of framing where we have come from and what is, sadly, a story of mismanagement and inaction over many years past that we need to come along and fix as a new government, I certainly note that the select committee that will consider more specifically the circumstances in which emergency events and dangerous conditions are responded to is an important part of that process. I note that it has been proposed that a select committee will contribute to that process. I fully expect that it will add to the depth and the thoroughgoing ability of the new legislation to serve all those in the community.

I hasten to add in this context that it is important that the government consults, as it has and will continue to do, with all in the community—with those who are volunteering, with those who may be imperilled or otherwise affected by emergency events and need to have the confidence that the response from all emergency services providers is as quick and effective as it can possibly be. Indeed, for those in industry, it is important that there is maximum confidence that all will work together in the interest of public safety, in the interest of the community's wellbeing and in the interest of ensuring that, as far as we possibly can, we avoid emergency events taking place at all.

I specifically note that the government, as it has regularly and continues to benefit from doing so over a range of subject areas, has met with and appreciated the work of industry bodies, including Grain Producers SA. I want to single out the considerable body of work that has been done by Grain Producers SA in relation to the code that GPSA has developed and implemented. There may be others in the house who might in due course have more to say about the effect of the code, the work that was done to arrive at it and the way in which it binds and brings together those in the grain industries by providing a standard.

Members of that industry, and particularly farmers harvesting at this time of year, can have confidence knowing that they have a standard that has been prepared and documented and is clear, accessible and nimble for them to be able to respond. I am quick to recognise that when it comes to considering appropriate reforms with the benefit of a review, albeit a review that is a few years old, we on this side of the house do so in light of best practice that emerged from the review and came into practice in recent years. I am sure that is just one element that will play a part in the consideration of the work of a select committee.

In the short time available to me, I want to recognise the diverse work of volunteers. I am somewhat well placed to do so from the perspective of the Adelaide Hills, within the electorate of Heysen. Our CFS volunteers in particular are called to a wide diversity of emergencies. It is far from just bushfires. In many respects, volunteers in the Adelaide Hills—particularly the Stirling and Bridgewater brigades, which are near the South Eastern Freeway—are regularly called to emergencies on the freeway.

There might be a stereotype that CFS volunteers work on bushfires; they certainly do, but they are also doing incredible work in responding to serious events, including emergencies on the freeway in particular, insofar as Heysen is concerned. In responding to their needs, we should ensure that we appreciate the range of work they do. With those remarks, and in that context, I look forward to participating further in this debate.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (16:42): I would like to make a contribution to the debate on this amendment bill. First of all, I would like to put on the record my thanks to everyone working within our emergency services. In that, I include not only the volunteers in the CFS and SES but also those who volunteer in marine rescue. I think marine rescue volunteers are often overlooked, and they play a very important role in keeping our coastlines and rivers safe. They also help people when they get into trouble. In talking about those who work in emergency services, I would like to acknowledge the work of the MFS. Sometimes, in acknowledging—quite appropriately—the work undertaken by volunteers, we seem to omit or diminish the important role of MFS officers. They also put their lives at risk when attending building fires.

Sadly, the reality is that more people die in building and house fires than in wildfires. That is not to say that one is better or worse, but that is the reality. As such, those who work for the Metropolitan Fire Service are equally important in keeping our communities safe. Most of us who have been in this place for a while are certainly aware of the role of volunteers. Volunteers within my local Country Fire Service, Dalkeith CFS, attend a lot of road accidents and undertake a lot of hazardous work. In fact, at last count they were probably the CFS brigade with the most call-outs.

I would like to respond to some of the comments made by the member for Heysen and others. The member went out of his way to talk about how this new government has listened to the people and listened to rural voters, etc. It is interesting to note, on the mining legislation, that four members of the government's own party actually had to cross the floor to get the government's attention about how displeased some of its rural members were, as well as how displeased people in rural communities were, with the way the government was handling that particular issue.

So they have been forced to consult on that issue, and my understanding is that history has repeated itself and that the government has been forced to consult on this bill, which was supposed to go through before Christmas. This government has again been forced to consult by the rural members of its party, and that is why we now have the potential referral to a select committee. I believe that is a welcome step, but I will get to that select committee in a moment. This government mocked the fact that we had community consultation. Community consultation and regional visits are important because it is about accountability; we were actually there, accountable at the time.

I notice that this government is a bit reluctant to go out there in force because it does not want to make itself accountable. The government talks about understanding rural areas better than we do. One thing I did when I was minister in this area was to introduce the farm fire unit program. I acknowledge that it was a modest program, but it was one that was really supported by people in rural areas; there was a huge subscription to that program. The program was important for two reasons. One was that I learnt that the first responders to fires are the farmers themselves, or the landowners. They are the first people who respond, particularly on private land.

If you can stop a fire from spreading by having the right equipment you can obviously stop a fire from becoming a bushfire or a wildfire, so it is very important that farmers have the capacity to stop those fires on their properties. This government has now abolished that program, and there will therefore be no more increased capacity for people in rural areas, for them to build capacity on their land to fight fires.

The second thing I learnt was that at any major incident CFS brigades and other volunteers are supported enormously by the farm fire units: in fact, in any fire there could be up to 70 to 80 farm fire units fighting fires alongside CFS volunteers, etc. For some reason this government does not believe that is important anymore, because it abolished that program. It abolished a program to build capacity in our rural communities to fight fires.

More importantly, it was not only about building capacity to fight fires; the program also had an important element to it regarding safety. The grant was contingent on farmers also accepting certain safety equipment and using what was purchased in a safe way. The idea of the program was twofold: first, to improve capacity and, secondly, to improve safety. We now have a government that thinks that is unimportant. If the government thinks it is okay to do that, its members should read the Stock Journal, because some of the comments in that talk about how out of touch this government has become.

We then come to this bill where, again, the government has been forced to consult with rural communities. That is paragraph (b) of the proposed contingent notice of motion, the select committee referral, being forced to consult with stakeholders, again, by members of its own governing party. That was not the case when this was introduced last week; I think it was designed to go through, but then, within the party structure, rural members made it very clear that their constituents were displeased. I think I saw a couple of media stories, in both the Stock Journal and also The Advertiser, reporting that rural constituents were quite displeased with the direction this government was taking. So the government has been forced to do that.

This select committee is a bit unusual compared with other select committees. Most if not all select committees have a final part to the terms of reference: 'any other related matters'. It gives people a chance to voice their opinion on issues relevant to that broad subject area. This select committee's terms of reference deliberately avoid that. They are very tight. They are designed to make sure that people in rural communities do not have a real say. It is a token process and a sham process because it is designed basically to get the minister out of trouble on this issue once again.

Mr Brown: It is a fig leaf.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: It is a fig leaf; that is correct. On the one hand, the government is trying to pretend that it is going to listen, but I am sure that the community out there will see it for what it is worth. I certainly hope that they make submissions to the select committee. I think it is important that they do that. I am also hoping that they are not limited in both their critique of this bill and other real issues, particularly how they have been treated by this government.

If the government was genuine in its consultation, it would amend the terms of reference to add a paragraph (c) 'any other matters'. It would give people in rural areas a free hand to talk about what is important to them on the ground rather than just being asked for an answer to one question in a very limited way. This government is basically saying, 'We only want to hear about the opinions we like, not the opinions we do not like. We do not want to give farmers the opportunity to express their true views about a whole range of issues in relation to this bill.' With those comments, I look forward to this bill going to a select committee.

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (16:51): As I have remarked before in this house, it is known in our state that we can expect serious fires in six or seven years out of every 10. The majority of those fires will be in rural and regional South Australia, including in the Hills. The danger of fire is deep in the psyche of my community. We know and understand how dangerous fire can be and how quickly it can spread through the Hills.

It has been a privilege to visit many CFS stations and volunteers in my district, including with the minister. The professionalism and dedication of local CFS volunteers cannot be overstated. Also within my electorate is the CFS training centre at Brukunga and the CFS air operations airstrip. Put simply, the Hills depend on the CFS and other emergency services volunteers. It follows that we are eager to make any improvements as may be necessary to emergency services legislation, and to do the work that was quite plainly left undone by the previous government.

To hear a lecture from the opposition, as I have heard this afternoon, on who really cares about South Australia is outrageous. It is outrageous. We are the party that looks after the interests of regional communities, including my own community. The careful and thoughtful commentary from the member beside me, the member for Heysen, accurately reflects how we all together best represent regional and rural communities in this state. One point made particularly well by my colleague is that the nature and scope of the work left undone is significant.

What we had was obfuscation and prevarication for years—for 16 years. Here we are now, at the earliest opportunity, making and taking those steps that must now be taken. I commend the minister for all his work in that regard. Managing fire in rural communities is vital. I acknowledge the significant work that the minister and our government are doing to manage and address the risk of fire in my community. Amongst other matters, the minister and our government have moved quickly to enhance aerial firefighting resources. More than $9 million will be made available over the next four years to boost the CFS air wing from 17 to 26 aircraft.

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

Mr CREGAN: What did you do about that? That is a significant investment. It is one that I welcome and one that all Hills communities welcome. To assist us all in planning and preparing for the upcoming bushfire season, the CFS are hosting a number of community events across the state. I recently attended a forum at Hahndorf in my electorate.

As the member for Heysen has outlined, CFS volunteers provide extraordinary and necessary services in our community. We are deeply grateful. Of course, we are also very grateful for the scope of services provided by the SES, police, ambulance officers and others. We are deeply grateful. As has also been mentioned, the range of those services extend, by volunteer effort, to road crash assistance, which is incredibly necessary, including this morning on the freeway where there was a serious accident that I myself saw.

Turning to the bill, the report on the review of the Fire and Emergency Services Act outlines a number of important recommendations to address issues relating to emergency services in South Australia. As the minister has outlined, issues include employment insecurity of volunteers who are absent performing emergency duties, breaches of permit conditions, various technical issues raised by emergency services organisations to address drafting ambiguities or other ambiguities in the act—a number of important and necessary improvements that were not attended to by the previous government.

I commend the minister and the government for establishing a select committee to examine the bill and note that the minister has in particular indicated ongoing commitment to working with Grain Producers South Australia and other stakeholders in relation to the bill and its powers. I anticipate that the committee will examine the Grain Harvesting Code of Practice in the context of the wider review, and I look forward to the committee's report.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (16:56): I rise to make a brief and rather unexpected contribution to the Fire and Emergency Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2018. I want to start off, too, by expressing my deep gratitude and admiration for the work of all emergency services workers, obviously, but of the CFS in particular, since they are largely the subject of the bill.

As a police officer, I worked very often hand in glove with the CFS in the peri-urban areas of Elizabeth and also the electorates of the members for Light and Taylor. I saw firsthand the quality work they did. They were volunteers but they were extremely professional in their approach to their work. I have nothing but admiration for them. My involvement with them as a police officer and also as a member of parliament has been nothing but exemplary.

As I said, I will speak very briefly on the bill. I intend to make a much more substantial contribution after the select committee, which I assume this house will recommend. Given the lack of consultation, I think other members have ranged across these issues quite adequately. I listened to the member for Light's contribution. I listened to the member for West Torrens' contribution with great interest. I think he made a valuable contribution to this debate, perhaps the most valuable contribution. Notwithstanding all of that, I will be brief because I do not want to frustrate the rest of the government's fulsome agenda this week. I support the amendment brought by I think it was the member for Narungga—

An honourable member: It was the member for Flinders.

Mr ODENWALDER: I beg your pardon. I am sorry, sir. It was not an amendment: it was a notice of motion. I support the motion brought by the member for Flinders. Let Hansard reflect that I have nothing but the deepest admiration for the member for Flinders and all his motions. I support the motion for the bill to be examined by a select committee of this house and recommendations brought back for the house to then debate that report, which is where I intend to make a more fulsome contribution.

I will not be seeking to be a member of this committee, but I will follow its work with interest and I look forward to it consulting widely, broadly and deeply with the communities that are affected by the bill: the state districts of Narungga, of course, of MacKillop, of Stuart, of Heysen, and many others. It seems clear to me, at least, that no-one in these districts was consulted in the preparation of the bill, least of all the local MPs and the loyal members of the minister's own party, but as the member for West Torrens has outlined very succinctly, the lack of consultation was thorough.

Not only were regional communities, farmers, grain growers, rural MPs not consulted, but, in an omission which is extremely rare and certainly unheard of in my eight years of this place, nor were the opposition even offered a briefing before the bill was brought on. In fact, I have learnt more about the practical effects of the bill from the member for Giles than from any effort from the minister's office, so I want to thank the member for Giles and acknowledge his contribution so far to the debate, both in this place and in the public arena.

This bill was introduced late in the afternoon last Wednesday. I knew that the minister was in discussion with the crossbench for a long time over the issue of volunteers charters. Indeed, I have had conversations with the minister myself about those. I did not know where that was heading. I have discussed the idea of volunteers charters with the member for Light, too, and the member for Kaurna. Charters may well indeed have merit, and we would have teased that out in this debate, had this been a proper second reading debate leading to the committee stage and then to the third reading. Whether they are worthy or not, we may not know for a while.

In fact, I first heard of the existence of this bill from a crossbencher from the other place. As I said, the bill was introduced on Wednesday—

Mr Pederick: You might want to talk to your whip.

Mr ODENWALDER: No, I was the first person in my party I am aware of who was aware of this bill, member for Hammond. I was informed of it by a member of the crossbench from the other house. Then of course the bill was introduced, and so on, and then no briefing was offered.

On Friday, I spoke to the minister's office and was assured that, although the bill was on the paper by then, a briefing was being organised. Despite all that, the bill almost certainly would not be debated in this place this week, yet here we are. Perhaps I am too trusting, member for Hammond, but I took the minister's adviser at his word. So I have not been briefed on this bill, and I have not been in a position to recommend any position on its several provisions to shadow cabinet or to the caucus.

The irony, of course, is that if the minister had approached the opposition with a briefing, if we had been properly briefed as is the custom for certainly as long as I have been in this place, he might have found me in a good mood. Who knows? I may have recommended the bill to the caucus. Who knows? He may have had his bill despite his broken, dysfunctional party room. He may well have had his bill. We may well be debating the third reading now as we speak. We will never know.

I will not hold up the house. I know that we have important things to do today and tomorrow. I look forward to this bill being examined by the select committee, subject to the proper scrutiny of rural MPs, rural people and the people it will affect most closely.

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (17:01): I rise to speak on this bill, and it perhaps gives me a great opportunity to emphasise the important role and contribution the CFS and the SES volunteers make and also the role that their predecessors, the emergency fire service, have played in the past.

Volunteers do not do what they do for recognition, but they do serve our community and keep it safe. Even when there are times when we put ourselves in danger—such as driving through floodwaters and not heeding advice—our volunteers will risk everything to help us and make sure we survive. Looking around the electorate of Finniss, and under its previous name of Alexandra, there have been some significant fires in my area that have affected my family directly in our farming enterprises over time.

The first one I would like to mention was on 17 January 1959. That fire started at the top of Cut Hill above Victor Harbor, near the intersection of Crows Nest Road and Victor Harbor Road. It burnt from there right down to the beach, and the seaweed burned for days following the fire on the beach and destroyed seven homes. Over 3,000 sheep had to be destroyed and more than 6,000 hectares were burnt in the fire, which equates to about 5 per cent of my electorate in today's terms.

The interesting thing is that back then there was not a lot of equipment to help put out or control the fire, so 1,500 firefighters were involved in fighting it. The Port Elliot showgrounds were severely damaged in that fire. Also, on researching this fire I discovered that my grandfather, Bunny Basham, who was a supervisor of the emergency fire service at the time, actually collapsed while fighting the fire and had to receive medical attention. He crashed his car into a tree when driving down Crows Nest Road, with flames underneath the car at the time, and he had to restart the car and get out for his own safety. Luckily for him and for me, he was able to get out of that circumstance.

There have also been other significant fires in the region. Ash Wednesday 1980 certainly affected the current area of Finniss. Numerous homes and buildings were destroyed across the state, many animals, etc., were burnt and 3,700 hectares were burnt out in that fire. Then we had Ash Wednesday 1983 when 28 people died in South Australia, including CFS volunteers. A further 47 people died in Victoria, including 14 CFA volunteers. That fire is certainly something I remember from my childhood. I was in year 10 at the time attending a school in Adelaide, and I looked out on the Adelaide Hills and saw the smoke, the dust and the intense orange glow that came through that dust and smoke across the Hills.

There was the fear of what was actually occurring, knowing that there were fires all over the state but not knowing how it was affecting my family in particular, because communications at that time were very limited with just landline phones and there was no-one inside that day because everyone was out fighting the fires. It was a very distressing day as a child to see that, and I certainly had friends in the boarding house who lost their farms, who lost their homes and who were severely directly affected by the fires. Fortunately, my family was spared.

We have had fires directly affect our farm. I remember coming back in the early 1980s from a VACSWIM program down on the coast, arriving home, driving down the hill, getting out of the car and turning around to see a fire coming across the hill from where we had just come. I believe that the then department of road transport's roller that was heading up the hill probably started it as a result of a spark from the roller going up the hill to see the fire, which burnt about 30 hectares of our place on that day. In that time, our response was to jump in the ute with some wet bags and do what we could to save the hay shed full of hay. Luckily, we were able to keep the flames at bay until the CFS arrived.

In 1997, there was a significant fire in the Mount Compass region, in the Tooperang Valley. That fire also came to our farm. We were the most southern point of that fire. It was certainly a very nasty day at the time, with strong north, north-westly winds blowing and fairly high temperatures. The fire started in the late morning, which is a particularly difficult time of the day for a fire to start because of the risk that it could keep burning all afternoon. Probably the community—the Mount Compass community, the Tooperang community—was lucky in that regard in one way because the terrain was such that we were lucky enough to still have some green areas of pasture growing on our place that slowed down the fire so that it did not get away from us.

Also, when it travelled further along towards the east, as it moved sideways it was travelling up a very steep valley, getting to the top and being blown out, which also made it easier for the firefighters to control. Interestingly, that fire is believed to have sparked another one down at Double Bridges at Currency Creek with embers travelling that distance, so we saw a significant jump in a fire just through the embers travelling. That fire was started by someone doing something they should not have done: they were unloading hay from a hay shed and a hay bale fell on the exhaust of the tractor. Unfortunately, even though they were able to get the CFS relatively quickly, the problem was that the CFS actually ran out of water and the fire got away from them before backup crews were able to get there to stop it going any further.

More recently, on New Year's Eve of 2015, there was a fire that started on another very hot day. I remember it clearly. I was sitting inside. I think I was watching the cricket and trying to keep out of the heat when our air conditioner packed up. I was a bit annoyed that we now did not have a house with air conditioning. We were trying to keep cool and keep the house as cool as we could. About half an hour after the air conditioner stopped, I started to receive messages of a fire at Mosquito Hill on Goolwa Road. The most concerning thing about that was that we have about two kilometres of frontage of our farm on Goolwa Road at Mosquito Hill and there is only about five kilometres in total with that area name having that frontage.

It certainly was something very concerning to us and I immediately tried to find out what was occurring. Luckily again for us, it was just south of our farm and wind conditions were such that it was very unlikely to come to our place; however, we saw over 310 hectares burnt that day. We had some very good luck that day in the community with some wind changes that occurred that stopped it travelling in a direction that would allow it to become a large fire.

In January this year, there was another fire just north of us. Again, that one was of concern because the wind conditions were such that, if it had got away, it was heading straight to our place, including our home. That ended up being only a very small fire, but, again, it was a difficult day. We were able to see that fire controlled very quickly with aerial bombers. I understand that it was actually caused by some powerlines coming down in the wind.

There are many causes of fires and many things that farmers have to deal with in getting their properties ready and being prepared, but I also think it is about making sure that we have legislation that is appropriate and prepared to deal with what is needed to protect our farms because we could see our farmers put at risk if we do not get this legislation right.

In the last financial year, we saw the CFS and the SES respond to approximately 15,000 incidents, with volunteers contributing more than 525,000 hours of their own time. This is an amazing thing that I am very proud of. I am also very proud of my grandfather for the time he gave as a volunteer. He continued to volunteer well into his older years and he continued to be involved as a radio operator when he was no longer able to be on the ground.

One of the important things about the bill is recognising the volunteer charters. We need to make sure that we understand the structures and functions of the CFS and the SES and that we do what we can to enshrine the fundamental concerns of some volunteers with the arrangements on the consultation process that were insufficient. We need to provide confidence that we are there to make sure we deliver what is needed.

I have asked the parliamentary library to do some investigation into this space. Something that people have raised with me is that they believe police have the power to stop farmers doing the wrong thing, such as a rogue farmer out there with his angle grinder or slashing his paddocks, etc. Something that I am very concerned about is harvesting. Can they stop people harvesting? My understanding from the advice that I have been given so far from the library is that the only piece of legislation they can find that might give police the opportunity to stop a farmer harvesting is if they believe it is going to cause environmental harm under the Environment Protection Act of 1993.

This certainly is not an adequate way to manage this. If a person is operating outside the industry code, operating outside the expectations of the community and continuing to do things that they should not do because they believe they have the right to, we need to make sure that there is an opportunity to protect their neighbours and to protect the towns downwind from them if they do not do the right thing.

It is very important that we have a select committee inquire into this, to make sure there are no unintended consequences and for the committee to make sure that the changes being made to the bill actually deliver what we want them to—that is, not stop farmers from doing what they should be doing, reaping when they should be reaping, but to stop those who are not following the industry codes.

I applaud the grain industry for what they have done. Many years ago, I was involved in discussions with the grain industry in preparing their code to make sure there were no unintended consequences for dairy farmers. I certainly support what we are trying to do here with this bill and I very much support the introduction of this select committee to make sure we do not have any unintended consequences. On that point, I close my remarks.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (17:16): I rise to make a contribution to the Fire and Emergency Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill. I applaud the direction in which we are going on this, especially with regard to setting up the select committee so that we get the right outcomes in relation to the legislative framework around managing bushfire risk in this state.

I am a member of the Country Fire Service (CFS), as many members on either side of this house are. I have seen a few fires. I have seen fires started by lightning strikes. Sadly, a neighbour lost their harvester in the middle of the night. There were perfect reaping conditions and they had stopped during the heat of the day. It was still over 30° at night and the header blocked up and she burnt to the ground. Due to the swift movements of both neighbours and the CFS vehicles, we kept the fire pretty well to just around the harvester. Sadly, on that occasion, the harvester was basically burnt to the ground. I have never seen anything quite like it.

This is something that farmers take very seriously. There are fires that have been accidentally lit by vehicles. There are stories about catalytic converters. I have heard stories of police cars with catalytic converters going into a rural property and the next thing is they have accidentally started a bushfire. It was an accident; they just did not understand that it was not the right thing to drive through. Other people have done the same thing, certainly in rural areas. That is why there are thousands of farmers—not just farmers obviously—who are members of the CFS.

What we have seen over time is that many of these older CFS trucks, as they are changed over, end up in the hands of farmers. So they have some pretty handy four-wheel drive fire units with 3,000 litres of water. A lot of these trucks have not done many kilometres in their 20-plus years of service to the Country Fire Service, so they are pretty handy units.

I have seen a fire go through my own property. In the old days, about 20 years ago, when we talked about bags per acre, watching a 14-bag wheat crop go up was a scary sight. It makes a lot of black smoke, and that does make you operate very quickly. We were very fortunate to have many neighbours—in fact, hundreds of people—turn up, shifting vehicles, basically encircling the house and sheds to save them. In the end we lost only minimal crop. It was close on 40 acres, in the old language.

If it were not for the neighbours and locals and CFS that turned up, it could have been a lot worse. Certainly we have had the issue of lightning strikes with scrub fires. There is quite a bit of heritage scrub around Coomandook. My property is on both sides of the highway. We have had fires come out of that scrub and come sweeping across. It has been that bad that they have actually had to shut down the Dukes Highway because of the smoke. I did not see it, but I was told after afterwards that Aerotech fire bombers were just flying straight down the highway, water bombing to tone it down. I guess we were fortunate to a degree that there was a legume stubble, a lupin stubble, harvested already right against the road.

When you have a fire like that coming through your property and you have reasonably high mallee trees and the flames are going 15 or 20 metres above them, you know about it. And it was hot. It was quite hot. Between my property and Coomandook was a neighbour's farm with barley stubble. If you think a wheat stubble or wheat crop fire burns bad, this might have been a barley crop, from memory and that would have really gone up.

I have a pretty handy fire cart. It is a trailer with 4,600 litres on it. We had that behind an eight-wheel tractor so we could go wherever we liked, and we just had to pour the water at the base of the fires and the trees to tone it down. The CFS were pulling in, as was the local earthmoving contractor. I said, 'Just cut a hole in the neighbour's fence. I will pay for the gate later on,' and they graded firebreaks. It just shows what the resilient rural communities can do when it does it the fan, because that is exactly what it was doing.

It is one of those things where the whole community gets on board. People are delivering drinking water to crews, because you have just jumped in vehicles in a heck of a hurry and jumped out there, and they are bringing drinking water out, or they are getting direction for people to race back into town and fuel up with diesel so they can keep fighting the fire. Not just that, it is what happens with the catering and the services that come on. You get a big event and the Salvation Army come on board or it might be community groups. It might be just local groups that get together. When you have a big event, everyone gets on board.

I will never forget this big fire that came through from the scrub. We had a wedding the next day for the community up in the Barossa. It was quite a hot weekend, over 40˚. I remember going to bed pretty late on a Friday night thinking I would be battling to get to that. I managed to round up one of my brothers to babysit the farm because I wanted to go and see my friends get married. What a great sight to get up in the morning and see trucks further down the South-East from Avenue Range and down around Naracoorte that have come on board to take up the fight for those weary firefighters who have been through the day before and those who have been there overnight. We did what we could for as long as we could with our private units around them.

I must commend what has happened more recently with the use of Aerotech as the prime contractor for the water bombing, going into the spots like up on the hillside slopes. It is very difficult to get in there even on foot. They just go in there and tidy up places you cannot get to. They can eliminate some patches, some hotspots, very quickly.

In fact, a friend of mine and his family were caught out in their house, and a water bomber went over the top and dropped a load on their roof. They had sheltered in the bathroom, filled up the bath and had done all the right things. If you plan ahead, you can survive a burnover; it is just how you manage. You have to have a bit of courage. If you are caught, it is better to do what you can and deal with it, rather than panic. It was certainly swift action by the fire bombers and they did a great job.

We have seen some tragic events over time, such as Ash Wednesday in 1983. A lot of homes and lives were lost, not just in the Hills but in the South-East, and some very good people paid the ultimate price. Technology in fire trucks and water bombers has come a long way since then. You can see it in the aftermath of Sampson Flat or Pinery, which were huge fires. Pinery had a pretty good growing year and it was right on harvest when everything was ripe, and there were wall-to-wall crops for hundreds of kilometres.

I remember going through and looking at the aftermath of that fire. The fire had jumped the Sturt Highway and the next stop was Gawler; that shows how close it was. While it caused devastation to open farming land and some houses were lost, and sadly some lives were lost as well, there would have been more loss of life and property if not for the fantastic work of farm fire units and CFS volunteers. Most of these people are one and the same—farmers and volunteers—doing such a great service for this state.

With regard to this legislation, there is some discussion about CFS officers having the ability to direct farmers to stop their harvesters. We already have a voluntary code of practice in place, developed under the old South Australian farmers federation and carried on through Grain Producers SA. I want to go through a briefing we had on this the other day. I want to thank Rob Kerin, Caroline Rhodes and Adrian McKay for coming in to share their point of view. They talked about the history of the Grain Harvesting Code of Practice, the importance of the code for the South Australian grain industry, and about the campaign encouraging growers to 'Know your code'.

When you have been involved in a few big fires, you do not want to see another one. They are terrifying. Even though we have developed better facilities over time—we have 3,000-litre and 4,000-litre fire trucks, we have water tankers in areas such as Coomandook, and the planes are never far away—if you can leave everything parked in the shed or on the ground, it is a lot better for everyone. No-one in their right mind wants to go out and instigate a fire.

As I indicated, the Grain Harvesting Code of Practice was discussed when SAFF was still in operation, so it has been around for approximately 10 years. It is a voluntary code and applies to all grain harvesting and handling operations in the paddock. It relies on calculating the Grassland Fire Danger Index to determine when it is safe to harvest. The code outlines a range of legislative requirements and required and recommended practices.

Legislative requirements are focused on the use of stationary engines to auger a crop, carrying a shovel or rake and portable water spray, and using a compliant engine exhaust. Many people wet down around their auger motor when they start it up. You must make sure it has a good muffler and, as I said, a compliant engine exhaust.

Required practices focus on ceasing harvest when the GFDI exceeds 35, maintaining machinery and removing crop residues, reducing potential for static electricity and having immediate access to a UHF or mobile, which pretty well every farmer would have. Our discussions included harvester design and add-ons that you can put on your equipment. You can put on blower equipment so that it is readily available when you need to blow the harvester down, whether you are reaping lentils or wheat or barley or beans or anything, just so that you can keep that valuable servicing up, which means you are going to lessen that risk.

Also, in regard to required practices in the harvest code overview, you stop harvest when the local actual GFDI exceeds 35. That is a pretty good point, the local GFDI, because things can vary as far as conditions go in a pretty close proximity. It might be that only 30 or 40 kilometres away there are completely different weather conditions, or you might be having different winds. It just depends on the day. You get a harvest like this one—which has been really dodgy, actually, after a dry year and drought conditions in some areas—and the rain that has fallen during harvest is not helpful at all. We have had some interesting weather, and we are just coming into some warmer weather now.

Obviously there are practices like removing crop residues from the machine, particularly in areas of high fire risk such as engines, exhausts or brakes; regularly maintaining machinery both before and during harvest and assessing wearing parts and bearings; reducing any potential for static electricity through harvesting, as I said before; and having that immediate access to a UHF CB radio or a mobile phone.

Part of the overview of the code is that, if conditions deteriorate, you increase maintenance and vigilance and actively seek information on harvest bans, monitor media fire ban information or advice or consult the Bureau of Meteorology for its advice, establish a four-metre firebreak around areas to be harvested or, alternatively, review the property layout and establish strategic firebreaks surrounding groups of paddocks, keep the appropriate maintenance records and keep a firefighting unit with at least 250 litres in the paddock where operations are taking place. Many farmers would have units that have far more capacity than that, as I indicated earlier.

Recommended practices include making sure your local fire unit, your home unit, complies with the joint guidelines for operating farm fire units, having some appropriate firefighting clothing available, and planning for protecting yourself, your equipment and your community. If you need training, get it and establish a fire prevention and emergency response strategy in regard to fire safety for staff, contractors and machinery operators.

This code is absolutely vital to the South Australian grain industry because when you have to get your crop off you have to get your crop off. I indicated earlier in my contribution how tough it can be in a harvest like this, where you have a bit of rain come through, where you have a bit of cool weather. It just does your head in. I have been talking to people over the weekend who managed to get 12 hours in for the week; obviously they are getting into better times now, but when you have had a tough year you want to grab every bit of harvest you can while you can and get it in. However, you always have to do it safely as well—do not get that wrong.

I know what happens in Western Australia. I was there during the eighties in summer time, in harvest time, and they have a total harvest and vehicle movement ban on a fire ban day that basically shuts down operations. Victoria has a voluntary grain harvesting guide based on our model here. I talked before about if you have a total ban it does not take into account that the grasslands fire index could be totally different maybe only 40 or 50 kilometres away, so it is whether or not operations should stop.

Grain Producers South Australia obviously recognises that it is imperative that South Australian growers adopt and work through the voluntary code. I note that Grain Producers South Australia is working with the CFS and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) to identify gaps in knowledge about measuring fire danger specific to grain. Grain Producers South Australia is seeking information on how the agriculture industry is having input to the fire danger ratings review.

Grain Producers SA and others are very keen to make sure that we get the right result in this legislation, and I know that they are very keen to keep the voluntary code in place. I applaud that we are going to move this legislation to a select committee so that we can have those further discussions. We do not want to get the wrong outcome, which is a real possibility, where people could be stopped by overzealous officers. It then becomes an issue of, 'Do we stop or not?'

Do not get me wrong; as I indicated before, fires are devastating. We must have the right outcome but, when your income is on the line, you have to harvest as much as you can when you can, especially in a difficult harvest year like this one. That is not to say that farmers do not understand the value of stopping when they have to to protect themselves and their communities. I wish the deliberations of the select committee all the best so that we can get the right outcomes for farmers, the CFS and the community of South Australia.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (17:36): This is a very important issue. Let me be really clear: rural communities, whether they be people who live in towns or people who live on farms, would be lost without the CFS. Equally, the CFS would be lost without rural communities, without the support of people who live in small towns or on farms. We country MPs all know that there is a very strong, important and helpful overlap on this issue. There are many farmers who are CFS volunteers and, vice versa, many CFS volunteers who are farmers. It goes without saying.

Our government wants to make sure that we get this exactly right. I commend the Minister for Emergency Services for his approach to this. He has brought forward legislation for consideration and consultation which, in fairness, has been years in the making. He also now suggests that we establish a committee to look into it a little more deeply, and I think that is exactly the right thing to do. It does not actually matter where this lands as long as we get it right. We need to have a situation that ensures that rural communities, homes, farms, the environment and other assets are made as safe as possible. We need to harness the skills and energy of as many people and organisations as possible in the right way so that we can achieve exactly that.

I would like to clear up a few things. The code of conduct that is in at the moment, which I remember very well was brought in approximately 10 years ago, is very important. It is very good. I remember what a positive step forward it was when it was brought in. I also remember how it was not easy to bring it in. There were people who had concerns, but it was a very positive, good step. That code has worked well for us for 10 years or so. Of course, it needs to evolve, improve and get better over time as circumstances change, but that code has worked very well for us.

As a government, we are not trying to throw out the code or take away the responsibilities that exist in it at the moment. One of the reasons that code was brought in is that typically fire ban days as determined by the CFS go from midnight to midnight. They also cover very large regions, very large chunks of the state. So it is not right to think that one midnight to midnight fire ban—and let's just stay away from catastrophic and all the rest; just call it a ban for the purpose of this contribution—in a huge region would be exactly right to determine whether you should or should not be reaping in a particular paddock in a smaller part of that region where circumstances might be quite different. It is not at all reasonable to think that in a midnight to midnight fire ban you would not be safe to be reaping up until 10 or 11 in the morning, or it would not be safe to go back to work at nine or 10 at night.

They are the sorts of things we want to work with constructively. They are the sorts of things that the code of conduct has contributed to enormously. As a government, we are trying to see what is the next phase of improvement that we can work through. Nobody is suggesting that any CFS volunteer could just bang on the door of a header and tell that header operator that he must stop reaping right then and there; that would be crazy. It is not what the minister is suggesting and it is not what our government wants to suggest.

Our government knows that, overwhelmingly, farmers are very responsible for a range of reasons: because they are generally responsible people anyway, all the way through to the fact that if a farmer or an employee of a farming business starts a fire with their header on their paddock, the very first thing that is going to go up in smoke is that year's income, let alone the fact that they do not want to start a fire on anybody else's farm that spreads in any other way. There are 100 reasons why farmers have more incentive than anybody else not to start a fire on their property. We recognise that. We respect that.

What we want to do, though, is see if there is a responsible way to enhance the protections of the broader community so that, if by chance there is somebody working at a time when perhaps they should not, there is another layer of opportunity to give that person a message to say, 'Look, you just really need to rethink this. Hypothetically, you are going to stop at 10, but the reality is that you probably should have stopped a 9 o'clock in the morning today.' We just want another responsible way of sharing that information.

It is not about sending CFS volunteers who are able to just throw their weight around in any inappropriate way. It is not about suggesting that the overwhelming majority of farmers do not know how to make these decisions for themselves. It is about trying to put a system in place that is as safe as possible and has the opportunity to cater to as many possible situations that might arise as humanly possible. The reality is that if the system we have right now is 90 per cent right, our government and the minister want to make it 95 per cent right. We are just doing everything we possibly can to protect the communities. We are not saying that the first 90 per cent is in any way wrong: we are just saying that we would like to tweak it and make it a bit better again.

To send this off to a committee to investigate these things and to take evidence from stakeholder groups that have genuine information to share is a very sensible thing to do. I support that wholeheartedly. Let me just finish where I started. On this issue, we all need each other. I live in a very small town of about 200 people, 300 kilometres north of Adelaide. I am a CFS volunteer. Most of my friends are farmers around town. This is trying to get the best for both. Farmers would be lost without having the CFS to call on, and, do you know what? The CFS would be lost if there were not farm firefighting vehicles that typically get to rural fires quicker than the CFS anyway.

We are in this together. We need to make sure that we use our combined resources the very best way that we possibly can, without inhibiting positive judgements and decisions and business operations—particularly reaping—but just trying to find another way to give some additional protection if and when it is required. I strongly endorse the approach that the minister is taking and I hope that this parliament supports our desire to ask a committee to investigate this thoroughly for the benefit of everybody who may be negatively impacted by a fire in a regional area.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (17:44): I thank all members in this chamber for their contributions, most recently, the member for Stuart, who was very insightful as always. I thank him for his input. There were a number of other very sensible contributions as well. The member for Narungga was outstanding, the member for Heysen eloquently made some very sensible points and the member for Kavel also had plenty of things to add. He knows very well how important the CFS and the emergency services are in his area. We also had great contributions from the member for Finniss, a farmer himself, and the member for Hammond, who I know is a CFS volunteer. Again, I thank them for their contributions.

Just to reiterate what the member for Stuart said, and this was made evident in my second reading speech and all the way through, on this one little aspect of the bill we acknowledge that people do the right thing 99 per cent of the time. We acknowledge that and do not inhibit those people in any way, shape or form. The intent is to have a mechanism here where that slim number of people who do not do the right thing can be called to account to make sure that they are not endangering anyone else around them.

We know that some of these systems are in place, and we have talked about the harvest code. In regions it works incredibly well, and I have made that point in this place before. But in the one instance where it does not, what is the mechanism and how can we have the best mechanism to keep people as safe as possible? That is the intent of the bill and what we want to do. I acknowledge the member for Flinders as well and his move to take this to a select committee to examine it even further.

Listening to people is vitally important. That has happened along the way over a period of time with these amendments, but I am very happy to listen again. The member for Flinders has suggested a very sensible motion that I think will give everyone the opportunity to have their say around this bill. With that, I commend the bill to the house, given the motion that is going to be moved by the member for Flinders.

Bill read a second time.

Referred to Select Committee

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (17:47): I move:

That the bill be referred to a select committee with the terms of reference as follows—

(a) to examine clause 23—amendment to section 82—power to direct; and

(b) to give consideration to the views of all relevant stakeholders.

I am very pleased to move this. Obviously, as has been highlighted, questions have been raised in relation to the proposed changes, particularly to section 82. As this select committee takes evidence in the coming weeks and months, all stakeholders will have the opportunity to consider this amendment, particularly in relation to the current code of practice as it operates.

Motion carried.

Mr TRELOAR: I move:

That a committee be appointed consisting of Mr Basham, Mr Teague, Mr Hughes, Mr Bignell and the mover.

Motion carried.

Mr TRELOAR: I move:

That the committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to adjourn from place to place, and that the committee report on 19 March 2019.

Motion carried.