Emergency Management (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 27 November 2024.)

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (16:31): I rise in support of the Emergency Management (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill. This act has served as a cornerstone of our state's emergency management framework for nearly two decades, establishing the legislative principles that guide us in responding to and managing a full spectrum of emergencies from major incidents to large-scale disasters. Since its inception, the act has not only provided a clear set of responsibilities and accountabilities for all stakeholders involved but also granted the necessary authority to facilitate a coordinated and effective response and recovery in times of crisis.

As we know, this legislation has been instrumental in guiding our state through some of the most challenging and catastrophic events in recent history. From the devastating River Murray floods to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the 2016 statewide blackout and the ravaging bushfires such as the 2005 Wangary fires, the act has proven its worth by protecting South Australians and ensuring that we have a structured and responsive approach to managing emergencies.

However, the world around us is rapidly changing, and so too must our approach to managing these challenges. Climate change is now an undeniable reality, and it is contributing to more frequent, intense and prolonged emergencies. We are seeing natural disasters like floods, fires and storms becoming more severe and occurring more often and even at the same time.

Over the weekend, we saw a large bushfire at Fox in the South-East, an incredibly hard to control blaze that has only just come under control in the last day or two, and at the same time there was a blaze burning out north near Gawler. Whilst these are now under control, had the weather continued to be hot and windy there could have been a different outcome. A very big thank you to all our firefighters who battled these blazes in horrible conditions, including some from my own community who went on strike teams to assist.

This summer we have seen quite a number of blazes and I can only think that with the changing climate we will see more. In addition to environmental challenges, we are now facing new and emerging threats that once were unimaginable, such as cyber incidents, which have the potential to cause widespread disruption to our communities and our economy. In response to these changing circumstances, it has become evident that our current legislative framework must evolve to address the complexities of a modern emergency landscape.

In order to address this changing environment, our government commissioned an independent review of the Emergency Management Act, the first full-scale review since the act was introduced. This review, conducted by PEG Consulting, was a comprehensive and thorough examination of the existing framework, with the aim of ensuring that South Australia is best placed to manage and respond to future crises effectively.

The review process involved extensive stakeholder engagement, reaching out to those on the frontline of emergency management, including government agencies, non-governmental organisations, volunteer groups and the general public. This broad consultation ensured that the proposed changes to the act reflect the diverse perspectives and expertise of those who will be directly impacted by it.

It is good to know that the final review received widespread support, and our government has carefully considered the recommendations made in that final report. In response to the findings of the review, our government has chosen to accept, or accept in principle, all of the recommendations outlined. The amendments are directly informed by these recommendations, and I am confident that these changes will significantly strengthen our state's ability to respond to future emergencies.

There are two key amendments, both of which are designed to enhance the flexibility, the responsiveness and the effectiveness of our emergency management framework. The first amendment sees the introduction of the role of the powers of the State Recovery Coordinator. As we all know, recovery efforts are a critical component of any emergency management operation. In the past, recovery has often been treated as a secondary concern, something to be addressed after the immediate response phase has concluded. However, we now recognise that recovery is just as important as response and that effective recovery efforts are essential to ensuring that our communities are able to rebuild and return to normalcy as quickly as possible, which is crucial for long-term recovery and wellbeing.

Being able to activate a strong and timely response builds trust between government agencies, emergency services and the affected community. This is especially important when people are feeling vulnerable. Experiences with effective disaster response can also encourage communities to take proactive steps to prepare for future events. The role of the State Recovery Coordinator will be central to this effort. This individual will be responsible for leading state coordinated recovery planning and operations, ensuring that all levels of government, non-government organisations and the private sector are aligned in their recovery efforts. The State Recovery Coordinator will also have the necessary powers to act outside of the declared emergency period, should the need arise, to ensure that recovery efforts are unimpeded.

This change is particularly important, given the reality that recovery operations often require urgent action even when a formal declaration of an emergency has not yet been made. For example, after an incident like a severe storm or a cyber attack, recovery efforts may be necessary immediately, even though the situation may not warrant a formal declaration of a disaster. In November 2022, a vortex tornado tore through my community from the bottom to the top, tearing up trees and throwing them around the place, including those that landed on residents' houses. It was a huge response from our local SES and CFS, who were joined by crews from around the state, including MFS, SA Power Networks and the local council. It took some time to clean up all of the debris, not to mention there were some areas that were without power for more than five days. There was also damage to one of our mobile phone towers that saw no 4G available within Coromandel Valley.

Much of the response was managed by the SES from their Metro South headquarters and local council. There are still remnants of this storm to be found in my community today. Having a State Recovery Coordinator who is able to act even if there is no emergency declaration called will only assist in situations such as the storms in November 2022. By recognising the role of the State Recovery Coordinator in the act and providing them with the powers to take action when needed, we are ensuring that the recovery efforts can proceed without delay, regardless of whether or not an emergency declaration has been made.

The second significant amendment is the introduction of the new declaration category, a state of alert. This amendment is designed to provide greater flexibility in how we respond to emergencies. As we know, the current declaration system is somewhat blunt. We are either in a declared emergency or we are not. This rigid framework has proven problematic, particularly in situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, where the threat level fluctuated over time. The state of alert declaration will allow the government to activate certain emergency powers, such as border closures, quarantine measures or other restrictions, without the need for a full emergency declaration. This will give us the ability to respond in a more proportionate and nuanced way, aligning our response with the actual risk level at any given time.

The state of alert will allow us to manage the public messaging around the threat, while maintaining the necessary powers to protect the community. For example, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic there was a perception that the threat was diminishing before the emergence of new variants like Omicron. A state of alert would have allowed us to maintain some level of control over border restrictions and quarantine measures without sending the message that the crisis had passed. Not only will this new declaration category help us respond to pandemics more effectively but also it will be useful in managing other complex emergencies where the threat may not be immediately life threatening but still requires significant management and control measures.

In addition to these two key amendments, the amendment bill also addresses a number of other important issues, including the mobilisation of the public sector workforce in response to an emergency. A recommendation from the review was to include an explicit mechanism in the Emergency Management Act that facilitates the mobilisation of public sector workers when necessary, not just during a declared emergency but also in preparation for one.

This recommendation has been incorporated into the bill and will allow the government to activate public sector resources quickly, ensuring we have the manpower necessary to respond to emerging threats. It is important to note that while we are making these changes, the bill preserves the core strengths of the existing Emergency Management Act. This legislation has long been a trusted tool for agencies and organisations involved in the state's emergency management arrangements and the proposed amendments will enhance, not replace, these valuable provisions.

The flexibility of the act has always been one of its greatest assets, allowing us to respond to a broad range of hazards and challenges. These amendments will ensure that the act remains fit for purpose as we face new and evolving threats in the future. The proposed amendments to the Emergency Management Act are critical to ensuring that our state is prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead.

By strengthening our ability to respond to emergencies, improving recovery efforts and introducing greater flexibility in how we manage crisis, we are ensuring that South Australia remains resilient in the face of disaster. These changes will not only represent a forward thinking and comprehensive approach to emergency management but help safeguard the wellbeing of our communities, protect our economy and enhance our emergency management capabilities for many years to come.

I would also like to take a little minute to talk a bit about the emergency responders I have in my community, and can I just say at the outset that we are very lucky to have people who will put their hand up to go out and protect us in times of emergency. I encourage everybody who is within our community to look out to your neighbours or your friends or your family if they are first responders, and thank them for doing that because without them, we would not be able to respond to emergencies and protect community as much as we do.

On the weekend, I attended an event at the Blackwood Library and it was called Big Map. Disaster Resilience Australia put it on and they effectively had a massive map of our community on the floor and everybody took their shoes off and you could walk around and you could find your house. You could see where it was located in comparison to other houses but also vegetation, topographical issues, where the water was, where emergency service was, etc.

We were able to talk through different scenarios: if a fire was approaching, who would be impacted; and what were the assets that we thought were important to protect. It was a fabulous opportunity to really nut out what you might do in an emergency and quite a lot of community members came along and took a lot from it, and I very much thank Disaster Resilience Australia and the City of Mitcham for having that program.

On Monday night, I attended the Cherry Gardens CFS with the member for Davenport where we presented them with a new flag. They are a fabulous brigade who know only too well the challenges of an emergency. With the Cherry Gardens fire that happened a couple of years back, they were the first to respond. They were also the first to work out what the challenges were in facing that fire and to help direct other emergency responders.

They are an awesome group of firefighters along with many of the others in the Sturt group and also our Upper Sturt CFS of course, which is my own brigade. I was really happy to see when I turned up for training on Monday night that some work that we really needed done in terms of fixing our driveway had been done by Adelaide Hills Council. We need to keep our volunteers safe. We need to make sure that they have safe egress out of their stations, and I was very glad to see that that work had finally been completed for the Upper Sturt CFS.

Our Belair CFS will hopefully soon receive their Quick Response Vehicle, thanks to the member for Boothby, Louise Miller-Frost, for that commitment at the last election to provide those units to our area. They are incredibly important to get out of the door quickly. We know we have quite a lot of driveways that are quite narrow and some streets that are very narrow, and these vehicles are incredibly important to be able to get to an incident quickly and get onto it fast while other resources are being dispatched.

Last Sunday I also brought together, with the help of our Sturt SES, our SES women and our CFS women for the inaugural Orange and Yellow International Women's Day Afternoon Tea. It was a fabulous event and really lovely to see women who put their hand up and maybe do roles that originally were not something that you saw very many women doing. In fact, Jane from the SES mentioned in her speech that women were not even allowed on trucks not that long ago, so it was really great to see so many strong women who put their hand up to not only play a role on the fire front or in chasing down storms but also work on comms and support the crews as well. It was a fabulous event and we look forward to doing it again next year and making it bigger and better.

Finally, I want to address an issue that has been going on in my community around the Blackwood CFS station. The Blackwood CFS station was flooded in late 2023 and it has taken some time to be able to get the work done to fix that, mainly because, in discussions with the CFS, the insurance company and the City of Mitcham, who are the landlords, we need to make sure that the flooding will not happen again because the station has been flooded a couple of times.

There has been a lot of planning and a lot of work going into trying to get everything set up so that that flooding will not happen again. It has taken a little while, but all of that process has been in place and it has been planned out, and they will soon hopefully be able to get started on that. I understand that there is a petition being put around my community by the candidate for Boothby saying that she is going to help fix it. Well, it is already under control by the CFS, and I encourage anyone who feels they need to sign a petition to look into whether or not things are actually happening already. I am glad to hear that Blackwood station will soon have that fixed.

I recently was able to share in Blackwood station's 75^th celebration and I also visited there last weekend with the Minister for Emergency Services and our member for Boothby to show our firefighters that we are fully there to support them and hope that going forward those works can be done and that they are not impacted. My community know that our firefighters do all that they can. We know that, irrespective of whether or not that work is going on in the station, they are quick to respond. I have seen them out and about in the last couple of days, so I can guarantee our community that our Blackwood firefighters are ready to respond when we need them. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:46): I rise in support of the bill. In doing so, the act has been so important in protecting South Australia in times of emergency, particularly in recent years. With bushfires, the pandemic and floods, the Emergency Management Act has been used a lot more in recent years. As many of us currently in this place would have experienced, the emergencies are becoming more complex and they are lasting longer.

I make the point that there have only been 10 declarations made in the act's 20-year history, and three of them were in the last four years. Prior to COVID, the longest emergency declaration period lasted just four days. Obviously, COVID was a significant event in our modern history, which was 793 days, then on the back of COVID came along the River Murray flood event of 118 days.

We had the first full-scale review since the act was created in 2004. The independent review was completed in June 2024. It had presentations from 15 government stakeholders and 74 public submissions, and there were submissions from the former Premier Stephen Marshall, former Minister for Health Stephen Wade and the local member for Finniss, David Basham. I would like to commend them for their work. They went the extra mile to put in those submissions because of concerns raised and the emergency situations that we faced over the last short period of time.

I commend the work of the report to bring the act up to date, and we must acknowledge that it did need to be brought up to date. There were 28 recommendations, and it is important to renew such an instrumental piece of legislation. As legislators, we need to better understand that legislation is a piece of movement—it is law, but it is fluid, and the Emergency Management Act is exactly that.

The introduction of a dedicated state recovery coordinator I think is the centrepiece, and one is always appointed in an emergency. But now the role will exist outside of the emergency period also, and a new declaration category will present as a state of alert for upscaling and downscaling emergencies. It is also important for sending the right message to the public. It is taking the public on the journey when emergency declarations are announced or when we have these emergencies. We are able to be quick, nimble, and bring the public on that journey so that they are well informed and we do not have any conspiracy, we do not have any detractors from the messaging that we want to get out there.

Particularly during COVID, that was a very clear demonstration of just how quickly things can potentially go off the rails. It is very important to understand how quickly we need to respond as a government in making sure that we keep our public safe, but it would be better described that there were waves of uncertainty during that emergency. It also would have been beneficial to have the ability to downscale and upscale as necessary and to manage those public expectations much better.

In my electorate, most recently we have seen the powers of this act play out in the Riverland—of course, that was the flood. It was almost a one-in-a-century flood; 1956 was a massive flood event. I know that there has been documentation put out there that river levels got to a point of just under 200 gigalitres per day, but I would say that there were areas of the river corridor that experienced more than 200 gigalitres. That is where there needs to be better leadership, there needs to be better monitoring and there needs to be a better and quicker response to that emergency, particularly in the Riverland with the River Murray floods.

So it does help to save lives and to assist those emergency personnel during that time of need. The emergency service units play an extremely important role, especially in remote and regional communities, but the danger of operating in floodwaters was also a significant stress point. There are a lot of people out there who were impacted with rising rivers, but there were also the impacts of the uncertainty, and the strength of that floodwater should never have been underestimated. You had to see the might and the power of that water body moving down through the system.

I was fortunate enough to have a direct link with upstream farmers, upstream community members, who were giving me day-to-day information and commentary on the impacts and where the water was emerging from. Certain areas of administration within government were clearly not listening to the movement on the ground. They were simply resting their decision-making on modelling. I think that was potentially one of the mistakes that I hope was a lesson well learned.

As I have said, the construction of the levee banks, the DefenCell, the reinforcing of roads, the plugging of stormwater—all of these actions were part of an emergency response to what could have been real issues that would have severely impacted a number of large communities. Here in South Australia, it must be noted that we are on a flood plain. We are the delta of the Murray-Darling Basin.

With those waters coming down, we have very much a differing landscape when the river and the water body enters, in particular, western New South Wales, western Victoria and into South Australia. It has already entered that delta system, and that is another way to explain it. Wide, shallow water bodies are coming across the landscape, unlike the northern basin and the northern system where we have very deep water bodies. Yes, the flow into the river system was where we saw the damage and we saw the heartache, but once it entered that river system, it was much more contained than it was once it entered that very flat and shallow water body.

I want to also acknowledge the tireless efforts of our emergency service personnel. I want to acknowledge the efforts of our local government, the state government and the community that rallied together, keeping an eye on one another. They were the eyes and ears of what was going on, where we saw if there were any breaches in flood banks and levee banks. By and large, anything above Lock 2 I think was very well managed.

There are a number of complexities below Lock 2, and that is where we saw a very narrow corridor for that river and that is where we saw significant impact and damage, particularly on the shack communities. Some of the river town communities were also impacted, but we saw significant damage and water levels rising up over seven metres in some of those more narrow corridors of the river.

I saw immense bravery and selflessness from all of the emergency personnel and all of the employees of those council organisations. We saw a number of private landowners having to take matters into their own hands. We had a number of issues that I think could have been much better addressed, particularly with power issues.

I think SA Power Networks came out of the blocks and fumbled. They were slow to react and made a lot of mistakes, but I do acknowledge that they did pick up the parcel pretty quickly. We had to amend some of that power transfer, some of the water gaps between powerlines and water. I think there was a lot of amended legislation that was made every 10 years and a lot of that amended legislation I think was made with good intent, but in practical terms it was flawed and flawed severely.

Again, for their dedication, I want to thank not only the paid personnel, those personnel who came up to defend our towns and our communities but, as I said, the private landowners who I think did exceptional work. They came out, they rallied and they helped one another. Heavy earthmoving equipment was very much rallied together quickly. A lot of the right material was sourced. I think there were a lot of approvals given on the spot. Some of those approvals that were given on the spot in a normal day-to-day exercise might have taken weeks if not months to get approval but it does show what can be achieved when we really have to get things in place to save towns, to save lives. The around-the-clock work was very much noted and appreciated.

I also want to make a note that, for our emergency services, those volunteers are becoming much, much harder to attract. Our volunteer base is becoming older, people are becoming busier and, having a number of conversations over recent months, it is quite an awakening when we realise that through fires, through floods—not so much through the pandemic—but some of our emergency responders are becoming that aged and frail that they are not able to undertake the tasks that have been asked of them. What it is showing us is that we are going to have to look at ways that we can attract those volunteers, that we can attract younger personnel.

I want to acknowledge Peter from the Duke of Edinburgh program, who I met only yesterday. He came into the parliament and was looking at ways that we can attract volunteers. He gave me a number of scenarios for how we can get volunteers into our emergency services. I will just touch on it briefly, but it is very important to understand that in today's modern world we are not seeing the baby boomers come to the fore like they used to; we are not seeing some of those gen X, gen Y, gen Z or millennials come to the front and give their time and their dedicated commitment to volunteering. It is not just emergency services—it is right across the board.

We did have quite a conversation about gen alpha. Gen alpha is a really interesting conversation, I must say. As I understand it, gen alpha are in the age group between 14 and 20 and are controlled by all things that are not emotional: they are controlled by their devices, they are controlled by peer group pressure and they are controlled by algorithms. What we are seeing now is that there is that culture that is not as forthcoming with giving time to their community, their service club or their sporting club. It really is a worrying sign.

What the Duke of Edinburgh program and award program are looking to do is to incentivise. Should there be a program put in place, I think that all of us as representatives in South Australia—all 47 of us—should come together and look at ways we can incentivise school leavers to give some dedicated time to volunteering and give their time without actually having to be paid.

It was put to me that there is a program that has been put to all levels of government, and it is around giving service after leaving school. It is not national service, but it is a program that will help fill the void in those volunteering numbers. Should that program be awarded, there is a pilot that I believe is going to be started up in New South Wales very shortly that is about reducing HECS debt or reducing some of that long-term financial burden that is placed on some of our young ones. That is a little bit of food for thought.

I think all of us, as a collective, are wondering how we incentivise the volunteer base in our communities and make them bigger and make them stronger. It is very evident, particularly in marginal areas of our state. Our regional and remote areas are finding it much harder to man a CFS/SES station, to man the canteens at sporting clubs or to put people into our sporting clubs and make them sustainable. We are seeing that some of those first responders' stations now are not manned at all. We have to think a little bit more seriously about how we are going to attract that volunteer base.

The opposition is going to move some amendments. We have consulted quite widely with the SA SES Volunteers' Association. I have been out and spoken to those volunteers on the ground, particularly in regional and remote areas, because we know that they are the ones who are much more marginalised. While we go over the legislation, we want to ensure that the voices of the volunteers are heard loud and clear. We also want to make sure, through the parliamentary counsel, that we correct a few areas in the draft bill. We have submitted some amendments to help clean up the legislation a little, just to correct those mistakes.

In closing, I have a couple of concerns—those questions will be asked in committee—such as fewer restrictions on recovery operations, particularly on private property; new powers for gathering information; higher penalties (I want to delve into that a little bit deeper) and fewer protections in legislation that protect obligations to secrecy. We want to ensure that this piece of legislation is meeting the expectations of the review and its recommendations, making sure volunteers are adequately represented and making sure that our volunteers make up a huge part of the state emergency response effort. It is only right to give them the recognition they deserve.

I also want to ensure that there are protections for vulnerable people and we know that vulnerable people are at much higher risk in an emergency, particularly the aged, people with disability, people with chronic illness, those who are sleeping rough and those who are homeless. I think as we enter the committee stage, we will delve into that to make sure that this emergency management bill is the best it can be.

Mrs PEARCE (King) (17:05): I also rise to speak on the Emergency Management (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill. This is legislation that we have had in place for close to 20 years now and over that time it has seen us through major incidents, emergencies and disasters, from floods and fires to pandemics and everything else in between.

It is a mechanism that helps ensure we are able to create adequate response and recovery operations for the safety and wellbeing of our state and the people who live within it. It has achieved this by providing us with key accountabilities and authority. In doing so it provides South Australians with peace of mind, clarity and a plan to move forward and through a major event, emergency or incident.

It is no secret that the world has changed quite drastically over the past couple of decades. The threats we face are changing in terms of the frequency, pattern, severity, and even the location in terms of where we traditionally have anticipated and encountered such experiences in the past and we can largely thank climate change for that. Our climate-related threats are more frequent, more intense, they last for longer and at times they are have been concurrent with other emergencies that we have been experiencing in both our state and also nationally.

But that is not all that we have encountered. There are threats that we face today that simply did not exist 20 years ago. Take, for example, cyber incidents. This is a realm that has come leaps and bounds from the days when I was using dial-up all those years ago. In fact, the most recent report into cyber threats by the federal government outlines the cyber threat posed to the Australian government's critical infrastructure, businesses and households. It goes to show how malicious state actors and cyber criminals are continuing to adapt their tradecraft in an attempt to compromise Australian networks. While we are fortunate that work is being done to safeguard our national security and cyber resilience, we do need to ensure that there are adequate levels in place and that they are adaptive to the current and emerging possibilities that we may be faced with moving forwards.

In order to ensure the state is best placed to deal with future challenges, an independent review of the act was conducted by PEG Consulting. This was the first full-scale review of the Emergency Management Act since its commencement 20 years ago. The proposed legislative amendments have been informed by the extensive stakeholder engagement that was undertaken throughout the course of this review. Feedback was informed from the emergency management sector at multiple levels of government, non-government and volunteer organisations, as well as members of the general public, and I would certainly like to thank all of those who participated in that process.

I am very pleased to share with them all, and all those in this house and those who may be listening, that this amendment bill incorporates all 28 of the recommendations that were made in the final report of the independent review. The work and the contributions of those involved in the review is helping to make a tangible difference in terms of the safety and the wellbeing of South Australians moving forwards.

There are two significant amendments being sought through this bill. The first is in relation to the role and powers of the State Recovery Coordinator. As we can all agree, recovery efforts are just as important as navigating through the emergency itself. We want our state to return to normality as efficiently as it possibly can. The provision of a state recovery coordinator within the act will help to strengthen emergency management arrangements in this sense. They would be responsible for leading state-coordinated recovery planning and recovery operations when it is determined that a state recovery response is required for an emergency outside of a declaration period, among other tasks.

It was reflected in the review that this role is identified, as are the powers that come with it. We as the government have accepted that, during a declaration period, an authorised officer role will have powers available to it as delegated by the State Coordinator, similar to the current arrangements for the Assistant State Coordinator—Recovery. It is important to note that the scope and the details of power required will vary, depending on the type of emergency that is encountered outside of a declared emergency, which is why regulations could specify the powers that are available, the regions that are captured, the purpose for which the powers may be deployed, and the period for which the recovery declaration applies.

It is important to note that, during a declaration, the State Recovery Coordinator will report to the State Coordinator to maintain authority and a control-and-command dynamic. Other powers the State Recovery Coordinator will have are the ability to share information as required and to request information to support recovery.

The second significant amendment that is being sought is in relation to a new declaration category that would help support the scale up and scale down of emergencies. For an emergency declaration to have impact, we need to ensure that a message on the seriousness of the emergency is sent to and received in communities. We need to ensure that, for maximum impact, we are able to reach as many people as possible. It is important in terms of making sure that people are consistent about the steps that need to be taken and also that there are not any misconceptions about what people need to be seeking out, doing and abiding by during these times.

For that to be successful, we need to ensure that there is a high threshold for an emergency declaration. What we have learnt is that the current declaration is a fairly blunt instrument, as we are either in a declared emergency or we are not. But, as we all know, emergencies are much more complicated than that. There are often different stages within an emergency that all need equal consideration and planning. One only needs to look back at the recent floods that we experienced across our state to understand how many situations were experienced within the emergency as a whole. All needed adequate attention and planning, both when going through the situation and also during the recovery we went through following the event.

As such, we have a declaration framework within the act in which we have identified major incidents, from a major emergency through to a disaster. Each category brings with it a different understanding of the severity of the situation to help give communities greater awareness and preparedness for the situation: they know what is coming, they know what is expected and they know what levers and actions will be put in place in the communities that they live in. Through these categories all the powers remain the same, except in the case of a major emergency or disaster declaration being made where the powers are retained by the State Coordinator.

The need for this change was really highlighted when the challenge of COVID presented itself. As we all know, there were various peaks and troughs that occurred during the emergency, and it was found that the traditional understanding of a major emergency declaration was at odds with the reality that we as South Australians were living and experiencing during that period.

The review agreed that a State of Alert may have allowed for the powers required to manage the pandemic to be in place—for example, things such as border closures and also quarantining—while community messaging around the threat could have been more proportionate. One only needs to look back at, for example, the time prior to the Omicron variant, when there was a view that the COVID-19 threat was diminishing. This caused a lot of confusion and perceived mixed messaging around the steps that needed to be taken and the severity of the situation that we were still in and facing, particularly when it came to threats to possible vulnerable cohorts and how that protection may have occurred, and then also the flow-on effects from that as well.

A step-down to a State of Alert may have allowed for the restrictions required to maintain certain protections while simultaneously messaging that while at that time the risk to the community was not on par with a major emergency, the state was on alert for what could be a rapidly changing situation at hand.

It is important to note that one recommendation was accepted in principle. This, of course, was to incorporate an explicit mechanism in the Emergency Management Act to facilitate the mobilisation of the public sector workforce when necessary to respond to a declared emergency. This recommendation was included within our amendment bill, but it is proposed that this mechanism will also specify the need for public sector mobilisation responses outside of a declared emergency, in accordance, of course, with amendments being made to the South Australian Public Sector Mobilisation Policy.

Importantly, the bill preserves the key elements of the act that are highly valued by stakeholders. The act is well understood by the agencies and organisations involved in the state's emergency management arrangements. It also maintains the flexibility provided in the act to carry out emergency management activities across a broad spectrum of hazards, which is absolutely core to its utility.

At this point it would be remiss of me not to mention the incredible work that is done by emergency services personnel across communities all over our state. I am quite fortunate to have some incredible emergency services personnel based in and supporting my local community, all the way up from the One Tree Hill CFS, the Salisbury CFS, the Salisbury SES, the Tea Tree Gully SES, the Salisbury MFS and the Golden Grove MFS, just to name a few, and of course our SAPOL that is based in Golden Grove and our paramedics that are now based in the heart of Golden Grove as well.

All personnel do an incredible job of keeping our communities safe at times when we are most vulnerable and are facing threats. It is during the storms, the fires, the floods, the pandemics and the like that we see these emergency services personnel really coming together to protect and look after our community. Many of them are local volunteers who have lives, jobs and the like, but they still give up this additional time and we are really appreciative and fortunate to have the structures that we have in place and the amazing people that support them as well.

I believe that these amendments will help strengthen the act and ensure our legislative framework provides a basis for effectively managing all stages of emergencies well into the future. Through that it provides emergency services, governments and communities the clarity required to help foster efficient response and recovery systems should we encounter another major incident, emergency or disaster. We may not know when it will strike or what it will look like, but we can certainly take comfort in knowing that we have taken the steps to ensure we are as prepared as we possibly can be and for that I commend the bill to the house.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (17:17): I rise to make a contribution in regard to the Emergency Management (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2024. It was introduced on 27 November 2024, noting that in 2023 a review of the Emergency Management Act 2004 was undertaken, given its increasing use and the complexity of emergencies in recent years. Only 10 declarations have been made in the act's history, with three declared in the last four years. Similarly, prior to 2020, the longest declaration was in place for four days, but declarations have since been in place for 793 days for COVID-19 and, one that was particularly close to home for myself, 118 days for the 2022-23 River Murray flood.

In June 2024, the final report of the Independent Review of the Emergency Management Act 2024 was completed. It was the first full-scale review since the commencement of the act and considered the findings of previous independent South Australian reviews, the framework of other states, engagement with 15 government stakeholders and responses from 74 public submissions. This included submissions from the former Premier, the Hon. Steven Marshall; the Hon. Stephen Wade; and David Basham MP, the member for Finniss.

The review made 28 recommendations of which the government accepted 26 and the remaining two in principle. The two most significant recommendations highlighted in the review are the introduction of a state recovery coordinator and a new declaration category State of Alert to support the upscale and downscale of emergencies. The review's findings and all 28 recommendations form the basis for the bill.

Of the 43 proposed amendments to the act, the majority of clauses implement the review's recommendations or are consequential to their implementation. The most significant amendments of the bill, supported by the review's recommendations, are as follows:

the appointment of a State Recovery Coordinator to assist the State Coordinator during emergencies and lead recovery operations;

a new State of Alert emergency declaration category allowing the powers of the act to be exercised to prevent or prepare for an emergency or to facilitate response and recovery following an emergency;

new powers allowing the State Coordinator to require information and documents to make declarations or plan for emergencies;

reinstating the temporary powers that were used for the COVID-19 response;

new powers allowing regulations that modify procedural requirements during an emergency;

a new mechanism allowing the Premier to mobilise the public sector workforce for the purposes of an emergency, preparation or recovery;

new victimisation protections for volunteers and employees carrying out emergency management responses; and

penalty increases from $5,000 to $20,000 for administrators or enforcers of the act disclosing sensitive information.

While the government indicates that all 28 recommendations are addressed in the bill, some are only partially accepted or require further scrutiny during committee. In committee, there will be a look at amendments involved in recommendations around the act's guiding principles that reference that specific planning requirements are needed for vulnerable people but the amendment only gives regard to particular needs of persons at risk.

Also, new information-gathering laws may remove obligations to protect an informant's identity under legislation, such as the Whistleblowers Protection Act 1993, the Police Complaints and Discipline Act 2016, the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption Act 2012 and legal client privilege. The minister may overturn some procedural safeguards themselves via regulations, which may still be rejected by the parliament. As the shadow minister, the member for Chaffey, has indicated, we will be in support of this bill with some questions raised during committee and some amendments put forward for the parliament.

Witnessing emergency situations around fires, and obviously COVID, which impacted us for so long in this state, I do not know if any government—and I hope it never comes to this—will be able to enforce the lockdowns like we had. The state using the state lines was very difficult. Me being one of, I think, five boundary MPs, border MPs, on the eastern side of our state, it was a very difficult process working with communities, trying to work with people so that they could not only still function as a community but also do their appropriate jobs.

I have mentioned in this place before the simple fact of the biosecurity control at Pinnaroo, where most of the biosecurity officers lived in Murrayville, across the border. Schoolteachers, school assistants and nurses were trying to get through to Pinnaroo to do their functions. Not only that but Murrayville has no fuel service, so they always came through to the On the Run to get their fuel in Pinnaroo. There were some emergency processes put in place by some enterprising individuals to get fuel in Murrayville over time.

It certainly caused some unhappiness during the football and netball season, I can assure you, when the Victorians got locked down deep in the finals and could not play in the finals of sport. That was distressing to the Murrayville community. They now play, I think, in the Riverland independent league. It certainly caused discussion all the way up to the SANFL and the netball association here in South Australia, because they were the ones that managed what was the Mallee league, now the River Murray league. It caused a lot of angst, and I fully understand that, but at the time I was part of the government, and we were doing our best to keep people safe.

Moving forward, the big impact was the 2022-23 flood of the River Murray, which caused significant impact. It was something that could be sort of planned for because we all knew it was coming, and it was just a matter of people heeding the information that was coming down.

The issue with the warnings is that, apart from giving a spread of flood heights—and I guess there are reasons for that—it gives a bit of a false economy on how much water people thought was coming down. Also, the simple fact is that, since some of the last major flooding—especially 1956 and then 1974—there has been a lot more infrastructure put in the river that has altered those measuring guides by up to half a metre. The constraints in the river have altered the measurement by up to half a metre, which obviously affected flood heights as it came through the Riverland and then through to the Lower Murray section of the river.

I was obviously interested in both sections, as the shadow emergency services spokesperson at the time and certainly in my home role in my home electorate as the member for Hammond. It was an interesting process and an enlightening process in one way, where what we saw, with the Emergency Management Act being instigated, was that things could happen in real time. We see too much—and it happens with both colours of government, so I am not trying to get too political here—the bureaucracy that grinds in normal speed, which is very slow—

Mr Whetstone: Glacial.

Mr PEDERICK: —glacial is a good word—to get things done, get decisions made and see that things are right. One thing I will say is that what I found—and I am sure other members did, like the member for Chaffey—is that when we as local members had direct access to people that we needed to talk to and they talked to us as well, it all helped the process, in a bipartisan way, to try to get the best outcomes for communities because this flood event was having a significant impact, and it was going to have a significant impact. It was about getting the best outcomes so that we had fewer areas flooded, more people assisted, and the relevant information through to communities as well.

I certainly want to acknowledge the direct conversations I had with Chris Beattie, the head of the SES; John Schutz, who was the head of the Department for Environment and Water at the time; and Superintendent Scott Denny, who is now based in Adelaide with the police force. They were fantastic contacts to have. You could contact them with whatever situation was going on, or when there was a little problem you could deal with it. I know I have talked about these things in here before, but it is really significant when you can actually get something done in a hurry.

My office had a call—I think it was late morning or around lunchtime on a Friday—that we needed to get out to Mypolonga to look at the situation there, where there was a temporary levee that needed to be built. Previously, we had not had any direct information that that was happening at this stage. We got out there and talked to some of the locals and could see—and they were telling me—that from the predictions the water was going to come through and it was going to flood the school and the bottom end of the town of Mypolonga.

Anyway, I started making some phone calls, communicating directly with John Schutz from DEW and then that instigated a whole range of conversations over the weekend. I know I have mentioned before—and I will probably get his name wrong, so forgive me, Con—that Con Babaniotis from SA Water was talking to me over that weekend, on the Friday and Saturday night as my direct contact, regarding what we do. Essentially what we had to do was form up where we were going to get the clay to build this 700-metre bund at the levee bank at Mypolonga, and it was great to have those direct conversations with the people you needed to talk to, like John Schutz.

John said to me, 'What about native title? What about this? What about that?' I said, 'Look mate, the pit we have identified was a pit in 1974. There's nothing there. It is intersected with a whole heap of irrigation pipes and SA Water pipes, so there will have to be some care taken.' Anyway, we got that cleared in fairly prompt time because the trucks were carting clay an hour and a half turnaround to the registered pit, and because it was emergency management, we could use the unregistered clay, and I am still not sure what the difference is apart from perhaps it has not been tested as much, but I will leave that alone for the moment.

Then I got a phone call on the Sunday close to lunchtime which said that there was one pit we needed to access clay and it had a mining lease over it. I contacted the mining minister, Tom Koutsantonis, directly and he, to his credit, had that rectified in quick time, by Monday morning. But it just goes to show that when it is hitting the fan, and it literally was hitting the fan, you can get things done, and it did happen right throughout that stage.

Down the track, we had contractors working on the Jervois levee bank and a couple of trucks slipped a bit one afternoon and people were getting a bit nervous about liability and suchlike. I got a phone call from John Schutz who said, 'Adrian, we can't keep funding it as the government, it's a bit risky, but you can approve the local contractors to keep operating on the bank.' At that time it was a $1,000 fine per head if you were not supposed to be on the bank. So, anyway, we went ahead with that. The trucks were authorised to go over the weekend. The next thing I get a text. I think it was on Saturday, and one of the truck drivers said the police were there. I thought that was interesting and I found out what was going on.

The police were just exercising what they thought was their duty in telling these people to stop working on the bank because they were contravening legislation and they would be fined. Anyway, I made a quick call to Scott Denny and I asked the police to just hold for a little while. Within 40 minutes we turned that issue around. It was just a little bit of miscommunication from the command centre in Loxton, so I was really pleased with those direct outcomes that happened then.

Then we had other issues. Like I said, people manage risk in different ways. I said to the racing club, 'You might need to put a bit more clay down at the river.' They have a water allocation, so I lined up some DefenCell bags through Chris Beattie, but then, because of the risk profile, the Rural City of Murray Bridge would not fill them up, which I found interesting. I will leave that there. What happened was that we got down there with three truckloads of sand from Spry contracting, and myself and one of my staff went down there for a couple of hours assisting volunteers bag up sandbags to help protect the pump for the racing club, which could have turned into a severe animal welfare issue.

As I said, it was very pleasing in real time, and I hope that always happens in these situations, where there is that flexibility. With the usual process, things get bogged down in bureaucracy, the checks and balances, but it was good that we could work with the people we needed to work with at a very senior level to get things done because we were there to protect communities.

Once the emergency was over, as quick as could be, as soon as the Emergency Management Act was lifted, we went back to standard procedure, which took a while to get used to. It is certainly legislation that we need in place. It certainly shows how it can be used for the benefit of people all fighting for the common good, whether it is pushing back against bushfire threats, whether it is COVID-19 or whether it is a flood or other events that our emergency services do so much work for.

The CFS has been very busy, especially in the Mid North, in the South-East and in various areas around the state. There was Birdwood last night or the night before. They do a massive amount of work in protecting our state. I want to acknowledge that we have had CFA volunteers from Victoria over as well assisting us down in the South-East, which is an exceptional thing. The air wing add so much more capability, and it seems there is more every year, which is a good thing to assist the members on the ground. They seem to have more flexibility these days in when they can drop and in helping to assist firefighters on the ground.

Of course, the SES do such a magnificent job across the state with their volunteers in rescuing people. We had a couple of stupid things happen on the river. We had some people who thought they could use something like a pump-up mattress to go down the river, and they had to be rescued, which just causes angst. They do marvellous work. Obviously, the MFS as well, with either their full-time firefighters or their retained firefighters, help to keep our community safe.

On this side of the house, we certainly support how the Emergency Management Act works. With the bill coming through now, with the review done and with the amendments that will hopefully go through, we will get a better outcome for emergency management into the future. It is a serious thing that involves not only the government from the top down but also volunteers from right across the state, and it can impact communities right across the state, depending on the emergency that is in play at the time. I will be interested to see the commentary in regard to the bill, and I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of S.E. Andrews.

At 17:37 the house adjourned until Thursday 20 March 2025 at 11:00.