COUNTRY FIRE SERVICE

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:48): I would like to speak on the subject of bushfires. As another bushfire season rapidly approaches, I pay tribute and offer a vote of thanks to the men and women of the South Australian Country Fire Service. We all know that the CFS is a fire and emergency service, whose mission is the protection of life, property and our environment in outer metropolitan, rural and regional areas of South Australia. But how many of us know that the CFS comprises some 15,000 volunteers and more than 100 staff, that its services extend to several hundred communities right across South Australia and that its brigades attend around 7,000 incidents each year, including bushfires, structural and motor vehicle fires, road accidents, searches and rescues, storm damage management and HAZMAT situations?

How many know that the CFS carried out 12,682 responses to calls of enormous variety in 2008-09; that it carries out education programs in fire prevent and fire safety; that it is of vital assistance to the Metropolitan Fire Service, police ambulance, the SES, ForestrySA, National Parks and Wildlife and the Volunteer Marine Rescue Service, among other organisations; and that, depending on the nature of the incident, it liaises with ETSA, SA Water, transport and road authorities, local councils, St John Ambulance, the Salvation Army, the EPA and the RSPCA?

How many also know that the CFS participates in regular cross-service training sessions, which enable each organisation to better appreciate what needs to be done when working as a group to build up and enhance lines of communication and to jointly practise, for example, evacuation techniques or disaster management; that it responds to calls from interstate and overseas; or that its volunteer members do all these things without financial reward?

How many of us would consider putting up our hand for such duties, many of which carry with them a risk of immediate or longer term personal danger? Not many, I imagine, and that makes these volunteers pretty special. We in South Australia understand only too well the terror of bushfires. The memories of those lost in the Ash Wednesday fires and of the damage caused will never be erased from our memory. More than 25 years later, we still remember and we still grieve and we empathise deeply with those now rebuilding after the Black Saturday fires in Victoria.

Less than two years ago, Black Saturday—Australia's worst natural disaster since Federation—saw 173 people killed by fire and more than 2,000 homes destroyed. We have all heard the stories of those who, given the speed of the conflagration, had little hope of escape and survival, and even that small hope was extinguished by the flames. Others sustained the loss of cherished belongings, their dwellings and their land, of companion animals and stock, and many were homeless. All were profoundly shocked and all were heartbroken. Such hurt does not heal quickly or perhaps ever.

Today I am thinking of the firefighters and related personnel who come so speedily and so selflessly to their dangerous task and of their families who, despite their own fears, send them on their way. Those people include South Australian CFS volunteers, among many others from related state services and non-government organisations. To them, we owe a debt of gratitude so great that it is difficult to articulate.

The Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission was established on 16 February 2009 to investigate the causes of and responses to the bushfires that I have discussed. The commission delivered its final report just a few months ago. Meanwhile, our bushfire task force was established in March 2009. Its mission is to examine key themes and issues arising from the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and to consider how bushfire management practices in South Australia can be improved in the immediate, medium and long term.

Recommendations arising from the royal commission and South Australia's bushfire task force have been considered and, learning from the Victorian experience, the government has adopted a national framework for advice and warnings to the community. In addition, it has announced the implementation of initiatives, among which are a new system operating over multiple media including telephone and text messaging based on the property owner's billing address for the season which will employ three levels of messaging to alert people to severe fire threats and, ancillary to this, an 'opt in' service where friends or relatives of people living in bushfire-prone areas can have access to the service.

Indeed, since the establishment of the task force, the government has committed over $47 million in additional funding to ensure that South Australians are more prepared than ever before to face the threat of bushfires. As part of these initiatives, South Australia is participating in the adoption of the new national strategy entitled Prepare. Act. Survive. and has just undertaken its first bushfire awareness week with considerable success. The CFS is more than ever intent on highlighting the need for bushfire preparedness in South Australia. We are all responsible for being Bushfire Ready.