Power Outages

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:44): Supplementary: what measures have the minister and his government taken to check whether the battery storages would be adequate if there were to be another event and, in particular, what measures has he taken to ensure that the events on the Eyre Peninsula, where they were unable to use the 000 service, will not happen again?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:45): I thank the honourable member for her question and appreciate her asking it because it is a genuinely important one, particularly around that issue of the 000 service. I want to be very clear about this: the 000 service throughout the state, including the Eyre Peninsula, throughout that event was fully operational. Where there was an issue was whether or not people had access to outbound calling systems. Triple zero was fully operational; the only thing that would restrict someone from being able to get access to 000 is if they themselves didn't have a mechanism to call in.

So, if their mobile phone wasn't working, for instance, they wouldn't be able to call in to 000, but in terms of being able to receive the 000 calls, that was fully operational throughout the event. I understand that, during the course of the event, there was a message that went out regarding 000 that may not have best communicated that concern that existed. In respect to your question about what the government is doing about the Government Radio Network: the most significant thing is investing over $150 million—in fact, from memory I think it is $154 million—into upgrading the Government Radio Network. That is a really substantial investment on behalf of the government to make sure that the GRN remains a world leader.

The GRN in this state gets a lot of attention, and that is understandable, considering how important a piece of infrastructure it is. However, in many respects, we are the envy of other jurisdictions around the country, as we have all our emergency services able to simultaneously use a single government radio network. That is something that operates seamlessly between our professional emergency service workers, but also our voluntary emergency service workers, and it is something that is the envy of other jurisdictions around the country. We are continuing to upgrade it, hence the $150 million investment.

It is not perfect, there is always room for improvement, but that is what we have to strive for in emergency services: continuous improvement. We will never be perfect; we have to make sure we are continuously improving and making substantial investments like the one we are making into the GRN—that is very much part of that.