Emergency Services Levy

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:29): Supplementary question: with the government or the minister committed to resourcing, will the minister rule out a fourth hike in the ESL in this year's budget?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (15:30): What I can rule out is a drastic cut to the budget of emergency services, which may well be on the cards with the Liberal Party already publicly committing itself to a substantial change to the way the ESL currently operates. We know that if the opposition is committed to reinstating the remissions to the emergency services levy, then that money needs to be found somewhere, and we don't know where that's going to come from. Is it going to come from the emergency services budget? I don't know. I don't know where that's going to come from. What I can rule out, since the Hon. Ms Lee has asked the question a second time, is this government drastically underfunding emergency services.

The men and women who work within this sector do an outstanding job. There have been any number of incidents that have occurred over the last few years that have demonstrated how important it is that our emergency services have the equipment and resources they need to be able to conduct their operations safely, but also in a way that benefits all South Australians. Think only of the Pinery fire; think only of the substantial storm event that occurred last year—these are classic examples of the sort of challenges that our emergency services sector has to deal with in today's day and age.

When those services are called upon, the South Australian community, I think, reasonably expect that the state government is doing everything it can to resource them adequately. I think the volunteers who put themselves in harm's way reasonably expect that their state government is resourcing them adequately. We are committed to doing that. We are committed to doing that, and our commitment is demonstrated in spades with our track record: substantial investments in training; substantial investments in PPE; substantial investments when it comes to trucks within the CFS; substantial investments in introducing and ensuring that a higher percentage of the CFS fleet has important technologies like burn-over protection technologies. These all have to be funded in some way or another, and the emergency services levy is a very important component of ensuring that funding exists so that those agencies, those volunteers, can get the resources they deserve.

If the Liberal Party go to the next election with a commitment to reinstate the remissions to the emergency services levy, they have to pay for that somewhere, and how do we know that there isn't going to be a direct cut to the emergency services sector? I know for a fact that there are many a volunteer out there, right now, who are very concerned about the prospect of those opposite being elected and seeing their resources cut in a way that compromises their safety. We won't let that happen. We will resource them adequately to ensure they can get on with keeping South Australians safe.