Metropolitan Fire Service

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (15:07): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. Can the minister update the council on the latest recruit graduation for the Metropolitan Fire Service?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (15:07): I thank the honourable member for her question because I was very privileged, immediately before question time, to attend the Metropolitan Fire Service graduation and address 18 graduating new fire officers. This is the second opportunity I have had to attend the MFS recruit graduation, and I have to say that they are profound events. There is a great sense of joy in the room. Many proud loved ones and parents of MFS graduates are there to see those people who have gone through an exhaustive process before becoming firefighters.

These graduates have faced an incredibly competitive field of over 2,200 applicants—18 people out of 2,200 applicants—to join the MFS. It is a job within the community that is well and truly sought after. These graduates made it through a gruelling 15-week training program involving over 700 hours of exhausting and emotionally demanding physical training. They studied their way through in excess of 100 lectures on subject matter critical to their new roles.

These graduates come from a diverse range of backgrounds, including a former member of the Finnish navy, a Sri Lankan-born musician, former Australian Light Horse and Artillery soldiers, an Army helicopter pilot, former personal trainers and others who have worked in real estate, business development, carpentry, sports coaching, mining and education—a wide variety of backgrounds. This follows the MFS launching its inaugural diversity in recruitment campaign last September, which saw culturally and linguistically diverse applicants jump from 1 per cent to 10 per cent, while applications from females tripled.

The MFS is encouraged by the upward trend and is determined to continue building on the result to ensure its workforce increasingly reflects the diversity of the community it serves. It is anticipated that today's recruits will be the first of three courses of 18 recruits who will join the MFS as part of their latest recruitment intake. As our firefighting recruits commence their careers and go on shift for the first time, they will be in the business of protecting everyday South Australian lives and rescuing families from the brink of tragedy.

Protecting the roofs over our heads, protecting businesses, industry, infrastructure and our economy alike, they will respond to road crashes, house fires, gas leaks, chemical spills and rescues, and they will be there to help our community when people are at their most vulnerable and distressed. Through service above self, they will play a critical role in strengthening and maintaining the emotional, social and economic bonds that hold our great state together as one. Our recruits are becoming a part of something larger than themselves, a part of a fire service that has a rich and proud history. Counting over 150 years' service to the community, the MFS is one of the oldest known legislated professional fire services in the world.

Each recruit firefighter will have the opportunity to expand their skills from operational firefighting and specialise during their careers into areas such as community education, fire cause investigation, 000 communications, urban search and rescue, and management. Of course, this Labor government is committed to ensuring that we do all we can to support our fire services, both now and into the future. Over the last 15 years, the government has invested more than $36 million in delivering eight new replacement MFS fire stations across metropolitan Adelaide and major regional centres to ensure that we continue to meet the community's expectations, which are rightly massive.

We have helped the MFS deliver six brand-new combination aerial pumping appliances or fire trucks over the last three years at a massive cost of $1.3 million per truck. As part of the $7.8 million combination aerial pumping appliance project, the six appliances have been strategically located throughout metropolitan and regional areas to enhance the operational response and community safety. These investments are all about providing the best possible resources to enable our first responders to serve the community with confidence and protection.

I take this opportunity to again congratulate the 18 newest members of our MFS and wish them all the very best in a long and fulfilling career. We are lucky to have a fire service that is so committed to the safety of our state. There is a great culture within the MFS. No doubt there is an extraordinary degree of camaraderie between all of the people who work at the MFS and we wish these new graduates all the very best in what will, hopefully, be a safe and fulfilling career.