Bills

Fire and Emergency Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 18 February 2020.)

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (15:39): I rise to make a contribution to the Fire and Emergency Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2019 and indicate that the opposition supports the intent of the majority of this bill, but we will be and I think we have reintroduced amendments which were opposed by the government in the other place. This bill, I think it is fair to say, has had a long and tortuous path to this place. At the time of its introduction, it was clear that there was significant lack of consultation not only with the opposition but also with the bodies directly affected by the bill: the volunteer associations and unions that were involved.

It soon became clear that there was a lack of consultation with the minister's own party room. This culminated of course in the forming of a select committee, on the motion of a member of the minister's own backbench, over the contentious changes to section 82 of the act, or what became known in the media as the 'harvest ban'. But before we get there, I should say that the opposition supported the vast bulk of the bill in the other place and does not intend to oppose the vast bulk of the bill here. This bill makes some worthy reforms, many of which hark back to the Holloway review of 2013, so I flag from the outset again that the opposition supports most of the measures in this bill, including the ones which seek to do the following:

clarify powers in relation to the closure of buildings, by allowing the MFS to issue and rescind orders requiring persons to leave a building and the securing of the building against further entry;

allow an officer of the MFS to engage a contractor to carry out demolition or other work at the scene of a fire or emergency, whether or not the officer is present at the scene of the fire or other emergency;

enable the formal establishment and recognition of industry brigades—in mining, forestry regions, etc.—to form part of a CFS group;

allow the MFS and CFS to record, possess or use moving or still images for the purpose of their operations and activities;

allow information about total fire bans to be disseminated by means other than just radio; and

attempt to provide that a person who is absent from employment on official duties as a volunteer in an emergency services organisation in connection with a fire or emergency is not liable to be dismissed or prejudiced in employment by reason of that absence, although I note that the efficacy of this measure was called into question in the other place. Regardless, we will not be seeking to delay or amend that provision, except of course the new updated harvest ban provision.

As I said, the harvest ban provision caused considerable angst in our rural communities. In its original iteration, it essentially gave CFS volunteers the power to direct landowners, particularly grain growers, to cease activities that may potentially lead to a fire. The power to direct cessation of certain activities is not, in and of itself, a bad idea. The Holloway review back in 2013 recommended that we consider the amendment of section 82 to include the power to order the cessation of harvesting or any other associated activities because weather conditions may be such that that activity is likely to cause a fire. The question, which has still not adequately been answered by this bill, is: who should have that power?

Following the introduction of the original bill, rural communities rightly asked whether this would mean that any CFS volunteer—a person who may well be a neighbour, a family member, or an employee of a farmer or grain producer—would have the authority, on their own assessment, to shut down activities. As noted before, the member for Flinders moved to establish a select committee to examine this question, such was the anger on the government backbench.

The committee in its final report reached the conclusion that SAPOL, rather than the local CFS, should wield the harvest ban power envisaged by the bill. It is worth noting that, on 4 February, Assistant Commissioner Bamford appeared at the committee. Assistant Commissioner Bamford is responsible for security and emergency management within SAPOL and is SAPOL's representative on the State Emergency Management Committee and chair of the State Response Advisory Group. Assistant Commissioner Bamford was asked by the Chairperson of the committee, in relation to the cessation of activities on harvesting land, 'Do you see CFS coming in…at a point before the police need to be involved?' The reply from the assistant commissioner was:

Yes, we do. Just as the Metropolitan Fire Service have a range of authorities that they use themselves. I see that it is absolutely sensible that the same thing applies to the CFS. There are authorities that the police have, and some of them are openly used by all and sundry; others are limited to people of higher ranks. A lot of this I see as a matter for the CFS to determine at what level these powers are used. We certainly don't see it as a police role to be the first people to turn up and tell someone to stop using a header.

He goes on to say:

We don't see it's appropriate for a police officer to be driving around the countryside trying to measure local indicators and then giving instructions…

I think it comes back to asking a police officer to make a decision based on some measurements and a number of indicators at a time and place, which is really not police core business. We are not really in the business of determining what the fire danger is and whether it is appropriate.

Given this contribution, and following consultation with PASA, it is the opposition's view—and the expressed belief of the South Australia Police themselves—that SAPOL are not best equipped to assess the fire risk. The opposition amendments accept the overarching premise of the government's amendment to the bill, which is to give police the power to enforce the law, which they do anyway.

They should indeed be empowered, if necessary, to go onto a farmer's land and ask them to cease activity but only on the advice of an authorised officer, and that authorised officer should be the chief officer of an emergency services organisation—which in reality will very likely in most cases be the CFS—or his or her delegate. We think this strikes the right balance.

Of course, the police will act if they think life or property is at imminent risk, as they always do, but the opposition believes that the powers this bill seeks to confer on the police should be tempered by the advice of an agency which has the skills and knowledge to assess fire risk.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. D.G.E. Hood.