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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-05-13 Daily Xml
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POLICE CALL CENTRE

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:12): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your new role. I am sure you will listen with interest. I wish to raise a matter regarding phone calls from regional areas of the state requesting police assistance being diverted to a central Adelaide call centre. I understand that this procedure was implemented in July last year for the purpose of creating greater efficiencies and freeing local police resources. It is apparent, however, that it may be causing unnecessary delays.

The experience of one of my constituents, a resident of Kingston-on-Murray, is an example of the potential for delay. He was woken by a knock on his door at 2am one night and confronted by a male individual whom he described as very drunk. This individual was requesting access to his home saying that he had to use my constituent's phone to call an ambulance for his wife who had been injured conducting home renovations. This naturally made him quite suspicious. After all, who does home renovations in the middle of the night? He also heard noises indicating the presence of one or more individuals outside his home and he told the individual to go home.

Concerned for his safety, he contacted police on the 13 1444 number provided for non-emergency assistance. This call was diverted to the Adelaide call centre, and my constituent tells me that the operator became confused regarding his location believing he was in the Kingston in the South-East rather than Kingston-on-Murray in the Riverland. It took some time for the operator to finally understand that he was calling from the Riverland and required a police patrol to be dispatched from Berri. Anything could have happened while my constituent was speaking on the phone.

His wife works for Relationships SA and also had an occasion to call the police when an appointment in the course of her work seemed to be turning violent. The incident took place virtually across the road from the Berri police station. She called 13 1444 and was shocked to find that the operator had never heard of the town of Berri. It took some time before the local police responded. Again, anything could have happened to her in the interim.

Had these calls been routed to a local police station, I have no doubt that local police would have had no difficulty ascertaining the location of these callers and would have been able to respond more quickly. It also raises concerns about the training of the phone operators in this Adelaide call centre. From the experiences of my constituents it would appear that the operators they spoke to did not have sufficient knowledge of their state's geography to respond to the calls efficiently.

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