Mount Gambier Firefighters

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:13): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services and Correctional Services. I am told the minister recently visited the South-East. Can the minister share the trip with the council?

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (Minister for Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Autism, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (15:13): I thank the honourable member for his question. It was an honour to recently meet with Mount Gambier firefighters firsthand to see how proud they are to have a 24/7 service for their community. Being there, though, you could feel how frustrated they were at the lack of acknowledgement from some regarding their 24/7 service.

As has been said in this place before, staffing at the Mount Gambier station is a combination of full-time day-working firefighters who work between 8am and 6pm and retained firefighters who provide the primary response from 6pm to 8am and provide a backup response to full-time crews at other times.

Often those in the community are unaware that retained firefighters can and will still be called during the daytime for full-time working hours depending on their response needs for an accident or an incident. They may be called into the station while the full-timers are out at an incident in case another call comes through. Together, they provide an effective and efficient service to the Mount Gambier community.

After visiting the station to hear directly from the brigade, I met with the Mount Gambier council mayor, Lynette Martin, and the chief executive officer, Sarah Philpott, to discuss their concerns. This was a productive and thorough conversation about how frustrated the firefighters at the station were with the misunderstandings spread amongst the local community. Misunderstandings spread during the hottest week in February on record since quite some time to strike fear into the community.

To use the MFS in Mount Gambier as a political football is not the intention of this government, while those opposite have no issue about striking fear into their local community, to suggest a community does not have a 24/7 service when in fact they do. It is incredibly frustrating for those who are protecting and serving their local community.

The MFS-retained firefighters are a diverse group of people who balance other work, study and family commitments while responding to community calls for assistance. Like their full-time counterparts, I understand they provide a high standard of responses to fire and emergency situations. It was a pleasure to sit down with retained firefighters, locals Darren and Duncan, and hear firsthand about what matters to them and about their part-time capacity. Darren and Duncan's combined service to the MFS totals almost 30 years. Together they shared how proud they are to serve their local community while balancing work and caring commitments.

It was also fantastic to be there when two updated appliances were delivered to the station, including the combination aerial appliance and the heavy urban pump rescue appliance, to enhance the capacity for the Mount Gambier crews. While in the South-East, it was a pleasure to stop by the Coomandook CFS station, the Naracoorte CFS station to meet firefighters and cadets, region 5 headquarters in Naracoorte, the Mount Gambier CFS station, the Mount Gambier SES unit, as well as the CFS air base in Mount Gambier where our nation-leading aerial support is housed.

The Mount Gambier community should be very proud of their local firefighters and their brave efforts to keep their community safe. As a 24/7 service, the Mount Gambier MFS brigade do an incredible job and it was a pleasure to meet with them in person.