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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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WORKERS REHABILITATION AND COMPENSATION (SAMFS FIREFIGHTERS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 19 June 2013.)

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (20:20): At last we get to this matter. The government announced almost 12 months ago that this matter would be brought to the house—

An honourable member: Guy Fawkes Day.

Mr WILLIAMS: Guy Fawkes Day, 5 November. It is almost 12 months ago. On at least one occasion the government also assured our good friends at the MFS that this would be operational by 1 July 2013. This matter has been listed on the Notice Paper previously. It seems strange to me that the government would run scared of the CFS, but it seems that every time that some of our good friends in the CFS turn up here in their uniform ready to witness this debate, the government decides to postpone it. We find ourselves now at almost 8.30pm debating this matter. We have been told for a week now that this would be brought on first thing this morning—we were told in the last sitting week that it would be brought on—and, as I said, when some members of the CFS turn up in their uniforms the government seemed to be scared to debate this matter in front of them.

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr WILLIAMS: There seems to be some evidence from the other side of the world that there is a causal link between those involved in fighting fires regularly, particularly fires in buildings with modern materials giving off all sorts of gases containing carcinogens. There seems to be a causal link between that occupation and a number of cancers that are developing, and the rate of these cancers amongst the firefighting fraternity is much greater than that amongst the general population.

A number of jurisdictions in the Australian context have made similar changes to the legislation which basically changes the onus of proof in the circumstances where a firefighter contracts one of these diseases or one of these cancers which are specified in the act. It reverses the onus of proof, whereas if this bill passes through the parliament, it will be automatically accepted that the contraction of these diseases under certain circumstances where the firefighter has fulfilled certain criteria, principally the length of service in the occupation, would be automatically presumed that the disease was contracted as a result of their work and thus they would be able to be compensated under the workers compensation scheme here in South Australia.

The opposition does not have a problem with that precept. For some time the opposition has indicated its support for the principle behind this. To my understanding the bill would not prevent WorkCover from disputing such a claim, it is just that they would have to prove that the contraction of the disease was not as a result of the employment as a firefighter. That is all it does—it reverses the onus of proof, whereas under current circumstances it is up to the firefighter to prove that the contraction of the disease was a result of their employment.

Where we seem to be out of step with the government on this is that there are two major classes of firefighters in South Australia and a whole range of subsets, I guess, within those two major classes. There are the paid firefighters in the MFS, and the government seems to address the matter with regard to them in this bill, but there is another class of firefighters: the unpaid or volunteer firefighters in the CFS (Country Fire Service). Is it not odd that the government might treat the MFS—the paid firefighting service which operates principally in metropolitan Adelaide and in a number of major regional centres—differently to the Country Fire Service, which operates everywhere else in the state but principally in rural and regional areas?

I said a moment ago that there are a number of subclasses within those two main sets of firefighters in South Australia. There is what would probably be best described as a huge amount of varying degrees of greyness, particularly in the CFS.

Having been a longstanding member of the local CFS brigade, I myself do not expect for a moment that I could make a claim if I happen to contract one of the cancers listed. I do not believe that I could claim that it was a result of me being a member of the CFS. I certainly do not recall attending a fire since I have been a member of this parliament, which is at least for the last 16 years, but, prior to that, I attended a number of fires in my local region over the years.

There are a number of CFS volunteers who are very, very regular attendees at fires. A great number of those fires are not bushfires. They are not fires out in the open country or in scrub: they are fires within built up areas that are not dissimilar to the fires that MFS full-time firefighters would be employed to try to control. The point we are trying to make to the government is that there are a number of firefighters within the CFS who are just as deserving of the protection that this bill would give to paid firefighters.

Mr Pengilly: Probably in Morialta and Hartley as well.

Mr WILLIAMS: Yes, a number of them would probably live in seats and localities that are represented by members of the Labor Party here. I am somewhat surprised that the government has not seen fit to embrace the position that the opposition has taken with regard to this.

I am not suggesting that every member of the CFS should have the same level of cover, irrespective of the length of service and the type of service that they have provided through their volunteering, but certainly—and I think this could be managed quite readily through regulations—there are a number of people who volunteer their services to their community through the CFS who are just as deserving of the protection that this bill will give to the full-time firefighters.

So, that is where it appears that we differ with the government in this matter. We in the opposition value the CFS and value the work of volunteering in our community, and there is no more important volunteering than that given by people who volunteer for our CFS.

CFS volunteers endanger themselves on a regular basis. In many of the situations they enter, they put their very life at risk and that, I suspect, is part of the reason that we have seen the numbers of volunteers in our CFS dwindle in recent years.

As a state and as a collection of communities, it is my belief that we cannot afford to see the decline that we have seen in recent years within the CFS ranks. As a state, I do not think that we can afford to provide a paid fire service covering the whole of the state, yet it is imperative. I know full well through my own personal experience how imperative it is to have a well-functioning fire service to provide fire cover across the state, irrespective of the population density. Our landscape is a very dangerous one to live in in the summertime and it is absolutely necessary that we have a well-resourced and well-manned fire service to protect our lives and properties throughout the state.

I ask the government to consider: why would we accept the principle that we need to put this legislation through the parliament to provide an added level of cover for professional firefighters when it is quite obvious that we have a number of firefighters within the ranks of the CFS who are exposed to the exact same dangers which would lead to the development of the same rate of cancers within their ranks, yet we would not offer them the same protection, particularly at a time when we are struggling to encourage enough people to volunteer their time in the face of uncertain but certainly real danger, when we are faced with dwindling numbers within the CFS, an organisation which is absolutely vital to our communities? Why wouldn't we offer the same level of cover to those people?

I fully understand the government's position, that it is frightened of the cost. However, as I say, many, many CFS volunteers would not expect to be covered because they attend very few fires, but they volunteer all the same. They do other work which does not necessarily expose them to the risks that this bill is aimed at addressing. Right across my electorate—and it is the same in virtually all other rural electorates—the CFS is very much involved in attending to road accidents. That is a traumatic exercise in itself. It does not necessarily involve—unless there is a fire involved in those road accidents—the same risk of developing a cancer from inhaling or being exposed to carcinogenic fumes, but it is an important part of the role that they carry out. Again, it is an incredibly important service to the rest of the community.

I guess the point I am trying to make here is that there are vast numbers of volunteers within the CFS. I understand that there are nearly 10,000 volunteers across the state with over five years' experience in the CFS. I know those numbers can be frightening when, in the MFS, the number of MFS operatives with over five years' experience is only just over 700.

I am not arguing that every CFS volunteer should get the same level of protection, but I think those who are regularly exposed and their exposure is not dissimilar to that of a CFS firefighter should be treated exactly the same way. That is the position that the opposition is arguing here and that is the position that we would like the government to accept. We cannot, for the life of us, understand why the government to date has not accepted that. I have on file some amendments to put into effect that position, and I will be moving those at the committee stage.

The other thing I think the government is well aware of is that the position the opposition is putting here is the position that will be adopted in the other place. I think if the government has done any homework whatsoever on this they would be well aware that they will not get this piece of legislation through the parliament without accepting these amendments, or amendments very similar to it, which embrace those very fine volunteers in the CFS who are exposed to the same or a very similar level of danger as their counterparts in the MFS. Having put the position of the opposition on the record, I will close my remarks there and will have more to say in the third reading.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (20:35): Let me put on the record for a start that I am a current serving member of the Country Fire Service. I respond with the Meadows brigade at the moment and for a long time I was with the Kangarilla brigade. I was captain of the Happy Valley CFS and recently I was awarded a national medal and a 25 year medal, and most volunteers, including me, do not ask for this. At that ceremony there were a number of long-serving members whose collective service totalled 4,000 years in the Country Fire Service.

This is not about Country Fire Service volunteers wanting extra benefits for nothing. This is all about valuing our volunteers. This is about making sure that this government realises what they have out there and that they cannot do without it. This is about making sure this government respects the people out there. As I was told today, whilst most people are running away from hazardous incidents, CFS volunteers and MFS firefighters are going to these incidents.

This government obviously is supporting the MFS through their union affiliates, the United Firefighters Union, and it is interesting that there are about 150 MFS members who are also in the CFS, so I wonder what those MFS guys are saying to their CFS colleagues when they turn up to their stations.

My father was also in the MFS for over 30 years. He died of bowel cancer, which is one of the cancers included in this legislation, and I remember as a kid dad telling me about the time they put on the asbestos suit to go into burning buildings and help rescue people. They put on a very rudimentary breathing apparatus with a bag in front full of soda lime granules that you had to shake up as you went in so you could keep breathing the air in and out of this bag as it absorbed the CO2. It was very primitive then and there are a lot of MFS members who have suffered from smoke inhalation and chemical toxicities.

It is a very dangerous job to be in. I remember my father coming home from the hospital bandaged up after having fallen through floors. It is a very hazardous position to be in, so I do not regret for one moment the government's announcement last Guy Fawkes Day of giving MFS firefighters this cover. It is something that they deserve. It is something they should get and it is something that they need, but do not for one second ever draw a line between what MFS firefighters do and what CFS firefighters do. It is exactly the same thing.

When I was captain of Happy Valley CFS we had what was called enhanced mutual aid. That was with the MFS at O'Halloran Hill and St Mary's and many times we had our CFS fire truck sitting in the MFS fire station at O'Halloran Hill and at St Mary's. You would be going to the same jobs and doing the same training. I remember going to St Mary's fire station and undertaking high-rise building fire training. Who would have ever thought that CFS volunteers would go into high-rise fires in the city when skyscrapers are on fire? The risk is there, the threat is real and the training is also there.

If you could go onto the government paging site, I bet even now, you would see that CFS and MFS firefighters are turning out to the same job, doing exactly the same thing, breathing the same smoke, getting affected by the same chemicals, and they are doing it time and time and time again. One exposure is enough to trigger some of these cancers, but CFS volunteers are not like that. What they are asking for here is a fair go. They want to be valued. It is not about the cancer cover. It is about being valued as volunteers.

It is about the fact that MFS firefighters get first-aid training. CFS volunteers do not get first-aid training unless you fit the quota. You do not get breathing apparatus training unless you fit the quota. You do not get road rescue training unless you fit the quota. I recently drove a truck at 1 o'clock in the morning to trees blocking a road; I had to stop it and put it back into first gear to get it up the hill. It is clapped out. CFS volunteers deserve better than this. They deserve better equipment, better training and better facilities, but they also deserve better recognition and to be better valued by this government.

I am absolutely amazed at this government. In this place we have one workplace with three workplace agreements, but now we are expecting the firefighters, who risk their lives every day at hazardous incidents all around the state, to have one workplace and accept two different workplace agreements. 'You can have cancer cover, but you can't.' This is absolutely ridiculous. Let me go back to Treasurer Jack Snelling's announcement on 5 November 2012. It was Guy Fawkes Day, which was rather ironic. It is headed, 'SA first state to support firefighters with cancer.' It should say, 'SA first state to support some firefighters with cancer.' He goes on in the press release:

We have seen the terrible heartache caused when people working with dangerous materials are not acknowledged for the risks they take.

Well, wake up, government! Wake up, minister! Wake up, Premier! CFS volunteers are taking exactly the same risks every day in their lives, going out there volunteering to protect South Australia. Without them, the fire services in this state would not exist and would not cope. Houses, property and lives would be at risk. It is absolutely unbelievable that this government is carrying on the way it is for what is, in real terms, in real value, very good bang for their buck if they ever have to pay out on these cancer covers. The minister's press release went on to say:

Now is the time for the government to protect those firefighters who protect us.

I cannot disagree with that at all, but let's not have a two-tiered system. Let's not have a firefighters apartheid. If you drive a red truck, you are covered: if you drive a white truck, you are not covered. It is an apartheid system that we do not need in South Australian industrial relations. The Treasurer in his press release went on to say:

The United Firefighters Union has advocated strongly for this move.

And, good on them. They are a strong, powerful and good union. The Liberal Party in this place is not anti-union, but we want them to be fair and to lobby fairly and represent the whole of the profession, not just pick and choose. I understand, and I will be corrected on this, that for a while, retained MFS firefighters were not going to be in this. If that is the case, what was the UFU doing? What were the MFS firies doing? I know most of them very well and they are not like that. They are inclusive. They do not want to see segregation or apartheid. They do not want to see discrimination. The minister goes on to say in his press release:

The government will now regulate to have measures in place by no later than July 1, 2013.

Well, the MFS guys have dipped out there and, certainly, the CFS guys are no further down the track. Minister Jack Snelling, on Guy Fawkes Day last year, said:

The onus of proof should no longer be on those who risk their lives for our safety every day.

That is, every day. Sure, there are some country brigades that only go out on occasional jobs, but some of those jobs might be a semi-trailer that has turned over that is full of hazardous materials and they have to deal with it. They still have to deal with it. Where would we be if they were not there? Where would we be if the road crash rescue brigades were not there out in the bush?

Then you come right back to the other spectrum where I was at Happy Valley. We had 356 calls in the last year I was there. It was not just a case of putting on the yellow uniform and going out and putting out a little grass fire. There were building fires, car accidents and hazardous materials. It was enhanced mutual aid, going down with the Metropolitan Fire Service and helping them to do their job. Many a time when they get a third or fourth alarm, you will see white trucks sitting at Wakefield Street.

What did we see out at Regency Park the other day when that big oil fire happened? We had the CFS tankers going down there because they did not have a water supply. The bulk water carriers went down there, and CFS volunteers went down there. CFS pumpers went there to relay the water because the water was so far away, and then we had Elvis the helicopter coming as well. So there was great cooperation.

There is terrific cooperation between the MFS and the CFS. I know, years ago, there was tension between the MFS and the CFS—the muffs and the vollies—but that has all gone now. They are one profession with one professional attitude, doing their best for South Australia. This government should not think that the volunteers do not deserve their support. I have heard figures of $50 million out there. I do not believe that for a moment and the CFS volunteers association does not believe that.

Just suppose it was that. Let us have a think about what the 13,500 CFS volunteers did last year. They attended about 8,000 incidents. They were not just grass fires; they were building fires, road accident rescues, helping with search undertakings—they were right across the whole board of everything that the Metropolitan Fire Service does; yet we see this government not valuing their volunteers.

It is an absolute and deplorable shame that we have a Labor government that supposedly is looking after the workers of this world. You do not need to be paid to work. Volunteers do not want to be paid to do this work. These volunteers want to be able to go out there and do their work but be valued. Their families worry just as much about them as my mum and I did about my dad going to work every day. We knew when he came back that he had done a terrific job. He would come back bandaged and bruised and sometimes he came back feeling really great, like the day he rescued twins from a house at Elizabeth. There were good days like that but there were other days when it was not so good, when you had bodies to recover.

We had a fire near our place the other day. I turned up and there was a car on fire and I was just so pleased that the person had managed to get out of the car. Having to deal with that end of it, with deceased people and bodies in road crash rescue and with hazardous chemicals—particularly hazardous chemicals, not knowing what the potential impact could be in years to come is what this is all about.

It is not because you join the CFS one day and you become eligible the next. There are waiting periods. In the MFS bill we have here today that should be covering the CFS, primary site brain cancer is a minimum of five years; primary site bladder cancer is 15 years; primary site kidney cancer is 15 years—and it goes up—primary leukaemia is five years; testicular cancer is 10 years; multiple myeloma is 15 years; colorectal cancer is 15 years—dad would have well and truly qualified for that at 30 years but he certainly was not looking for anything to do with the fire service for any sort of claim at all; and oesophageal cancer is 25 years.

I qualify for all those but I am not—and I certainly know every other volunteer in South Australia—looking for the cancer cover. What they want to be is valued. The cancer cover is just a sign that this government values them. The day they do not recognise the value of our volunteers is a very sad day for volunteering in South Australia. It is a very sad day for this parliament not to be able to put its hand up and say, 'We know it costs but we do value what you are doing and we recognise what you are doing.'

I implore this Premier, the minister and the Minister for Emergency Services to think again about this. Do not think about the money. $40 million for a footbridge over the River Torrens but you quibble over a supposed figure of millions in payouts to CFS volunteers. When you look at the incidence per 100,000 of these cancers it is very small. When you put that down to the 13,500 volunteers it is a very minute risk—a real threat but a very minute risk of these people wanting to claim.

Do not devalue our volunteers. Do not do what you are doing to them now. Do not destroy their faith in us as members of parliament to value them and that all they ever see is that when there is a big fire we go and stand in front of the cameras and say what a great job they have done. They appreciate that but what they really want, besides having good equipment, good training and good facilities, is to be valued. They want to be recognised for the professionals that they are.

The Hazmat training, the road crash rescue, the high rise, the structure fires, the car fires, the plantation fires—even now you have to do a two-day course to learn how to use a chainsaw in the CFS. It is becoming more and more onerous to train in the CFS. Yet these volunteers do it day after day after day. They come out and train and they do not complain. I am complaining on their behalf because they do not. I will keep standing up in here every time this government does not value these volunteers.

I will say in this place that I will never claim against this as a CFS volunteer—never. If you want that commitment from me you have it, so there is no conflict of interest here at all. This is not about me; this is about valuing our CFS volunteers, and I am very proud to be a serving member of the Country Fire Service. I want everybody in this place to value them. On this side of the house we could crew a truck tonight. The member for Hammond, the member for Stuart, the member for Finniss, myself, the member for MacKillop, the member for Chaffey—we could drive and crew a truck tonight. We could do that. We know what it is like to be out there.

The former premier and the current Minister for Education, they have been in the CFS. Where were they when this was being put through cabinet? We know where the former premier was, he was in London, but you would think that he might have said, 'Hang on guys! I still have some connections back here.' The education minister, where was she? In cabinet? She was not out at the Salisbury CFS, she was not talking to them and asking them. The Labor members of parliament, how are they going to face their CFS volunteers? Are they going to say, 'Well, you don't go to that many fires, you won't be bothered by this. That's okay, we love you.' We want your love, we want your appreciation and, in this case, a tiny bit of money. It is about valuing volunteers. It is not dollar value, it is about volunteering.

Mrs Vlahos interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: Pardon, member for Taylor?

Mrs Vlahos interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: I just fail to understand the rationale, the thinking here, how the caucus could have let this go through. You say that you are serving the people of South Australia. Well, serve the people of South Australia, change this legislation—support our CFS volunteers.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (20:51): I rise to speak on the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation (SAMFS Firefighters) Amendment Bill. In making this contribution, I confirm that I am not a member of the Country Fire Service or the Metropolitan Fire Service or the State Emergency Service, but I am proud to say that I am the opposition's spokesperson for emergency services in this state.

In the short time I have had that role, I have certainly grown in my knowledge and understanding of the personal sacrifice that people make in providing emergency services to us, and that is not to diminish lifesaving and ambulance services, some of which are now allocated to other areas of portfolio responsibility. Clearly, people who serve in a paid or voluntary capacity put their life on the line on a regular basis for the protection of all of us, and I thank my colleagues all around this parliament who have served in any of those capacities.

The member for Morphett has given a passionate contribution to this debate, outlining his commitment to volunteers and his plea to the government that it remembers and recognises this service and does not distinguish, to the extent of exclusion, between those who are professionally career-based contributors in relation to fire management and protection and those who are volunteers. I think it was one of his better speeches. I was most impressed with that contribution.

In essence, what has occurred is that the government is proposing a bill for our consideration and approval which will ensure that firefighters who contract a range of cancers—and there are some 12 of them, with different threshold qualifying periods—which potentially have been caused by the exposure to the occupational hazards of fighting fires to be able to have financial support and access to WorkCover assistance and rehabilitation. The principal act, of course, provides this across the state for personnel who are eligible.

In essence, it does not give a new claim, but it makes it easier for those making a claim by starting with the presumption that, under the act, a firefighter who has contracted one of these particular cancers would be deemed to have contracted it in the course of their duties. So, they do not have the onus of proof. The hurdle, in litigation, to overcome that would be for the respondent (in this case, representatives of the government) in that they would have the responsibility to rebut that presumption if they were satisfied that, in fact, there had been some other causal principal link to the development of cancer in the applicant.

It is interesting in that there has been in this particular bill a placing for the application of this benefit to what the government call 'career firefighters'. The contribution to the second reading from the government suggests that people who are in the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service, including retained firefighters who contract these conditions, are more at risk as a result of direct exposure to carcinogens released by combusting materials and that this needs to therefore apply to them and they have this benefit of privilege. There is no issue with that.

The data that has been presented to us in briefings, and the public consultations on this issue, which has been in the field for some time I think demonstrably recognises that, and it is reasonable that the Metropolitan Fire Service firefighters have that application so that their families and the firefighters can be relieved of that extra burden. There is no issue with that. What has become apparent, though, is that the government is resistant to a claim for volunteers in the Country Fire Service to be eligible for the same benefit.

It seems that, in the dialogue and correspondence between the relevant parties on this issue, the government's basis for rejection is that because there is such a substantially greater number of personnel—that is, some 10,000-plus at present in the Country Fire Service—this would expose the state, and therefore the taxpayer, to a very high risk of a very substantial amount of money that would be necessary to meet this obligation.

I have heard claims that it is estimated at some $25 million. The minister, the Attorney-General, put to me today that it is more like $50 million. I am not sure who is giving the right information here, but I make the point that the government is saying that this is too costly an exercise if we expand it to the volunteers and therefore they should be denied this privilege of the reverse onus in relation to the burden of proof.

As I understand it, the government has attempted to present a compromise position. The thresholds apply, as apply to the MFS, but they would also have an average exposures test, which would eliminate most claimants from having the opportunity of this reverse onus but would narrow it down to perhaps about 800 volunteers, potentially, and that would significantly reduce the financial exposure of the government to providing it. As I say, it does not automatically mean they are entitled to a claim, but it does place the onus back on, essentially, the government's representatives to rebut that primary presumption.

It seems as though those who are representing the CFS members say that that is not acceptable and, in perhaps less passionate terms but no less sincere than the member for Morphett's contribution, they have outlined that it would just be inequitable and unacceptable to distinguish and disadvantage those who are in the volunteer industry. That matter has not been resolved.

Whatever the figure is, whether it is $25 million, which seems to have been a figure of discussion substantiating the government's position, or the newly arrived $50 million figure that was presented to me today, what is very disappointing is that the government has had every opportunity over the last 12 months to present to the opposition, indeed to all members of parliament here, the data that supports the claim of the extraordinary cost to justify this claim.

The very fact that I am getting somewhere between $25 million and $50 million proposals, and other members have different figures (I do not know), I make the point that there has been every opportunity to present that. In fact, I had a meeting with the Attorney just this morning and indicated that we would need to look at this to consider this financial aspect and whether it has any merit at all—and it may—and that we need to see that material. I thought I was going to get it during the day; unfortunately, it has not arrived.

Again, I think the government's practice of attempting to keep the opposition in the dark on these matters as some means by which they will just crush through legislation is a very poor standard to set, and it is certainly not one that will deter me, and I am sure most members on this side, from our resolve to ensure that there be some equity of application for victims who have one of these 12 cancers for relief, compensation and rehabilitation, whether they are paid or unpaid.

I am very proud to say that I have in my electorate a South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service unit at Glen Osmond. In fact, they have a proud new facility. I remember putting in submissions to the Public Works Committee for that to progress, and I was very proud to see it recently with the lights on and operating. It has not had an official opening yet. I am still waiting for an invitation to that and I will look forward to welcoming the minister out to the seat of Bragg because I am proud, and the members of the MFS are proud, of the work that they do.

Not only do they have what I would call the usual Metropolitan Fire Service responsibilities, including a service to roads, but, of course, they are adjacent to the very busy South-Eastern Freeway which, sadly, requires attention from time to time with motor vehicle accidents, truck damage and so on. It also requires specialist attention, especially with the management of either distraught persons or stock or animals, pets, and obviously people who are injured and, in addition to that, the delicate management of contaminants that might spill out from any number of vehicles that use that freeway. So, they have a busy life but they also have brand new facility which helps them with training.

Right around the corner we have the Burnside Country Fire Service. That is such a popular country service branch that not only are our current serving Metropolitan Fire Service officers members of that, but we have a waiting list, and I would like to see some encouragement given to accommodating these people who would like to join the Burnside CFS. Obviously they have metropolitan management of vegetation which is right up to intensive housing areas, and also all of the challenges on the freeway. Frequently, whether it is a bushfire or road accident on the freeway, CFS, MFS and SES are all called to assist.

We do not have a local SES but there is one in the neighbouring electorate, particularly if there is a search or recovery of a body, the SES come in with their valued skills as well. Very often these personnel are at the same fires, facing the same risks, obviously in the face of the same dangers; and they are often the same personnel, some who overlap in voluntary and professional career roles.

The other aspect that I think is particularly important for the Country Fire Service is that they have a very strong role in the education, management and supervision of cold burns which help reduce the fuel load, which is such a major factor when it comes to management of fire risk and protection of property and persons during fire danger periods. They are very active in that area, and it is fair to say that, if they do a cold burn area, they search the area first and they properly inspect the precinct.

There are contaminants: there may be chemicals on posts, there may be toxic paints and all sorts of things that they are exposed to during the course of even a managed cold burn activity. They may be called to household fires, and in fact, the member for Morphett, ever vigilant with the latest news, tells me that the Salisbury MFS and CFS are both attending a fire alarm at the Ingham's chicken factory at Burton as we speak, so that is an area of cooperation.

How is it that a MFS officer can claim, having reached the 10-year threshold for a potential cancer claim, having attended at the Ingham's chicken store on this day, and yet the fellow Country Fire Service volunteer in 10 years would not be eligible if this legislation goes through? The unfairness of that has been highlighted.

I make the point that this extra role of the CFS—that is not to say that the MFS does not have extra roles as well, but this extra role that the CFS particularly has—actually exposes it to a number of areas of contamination and toxicity which could introduce the cancer risk. We had a number of briefings about what the carcinogenic triggers for these things are. Probably none of us here in this house are experts on that, but we are reliably informed that there are direct connections and that there is a justification for firefighters to have that exposure.

The fact that the government has decided that it will allow only Metropolitan Fire Service personnel to have access to this consideration is deplorable. Any justification is weakened by the fact that any evidence to support the claims for massive and unaffordable financial cost by giving access to our volunteers simply evaporates given that no documentation, in all the months that we have been dealing with this, has presented itself for our consideration. I am deeply disappointed in that.

I thank those who continue to put their lives at risk and make our lives safer. I thank those who not only give us advice in the management of fire and emergency but also ensure that our buildings and property, both natural and built assets, are protected. That is valued advice from the MFS and the CFS, and I thank them for that continued service.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (21:07): I will not go over all of the issues with regard to this bill, other than to say that I think the government has the start of a very good bill on the go here. There is just not enough in it, and I am very hopeful that, with the support of the opposition, the Independents and minor parties, it will get to where it needs be.

I declare the fact that I am an active CFS brigade member with the Wilmington brigade. Like all of us here, if you spend half your time in Adelaide and only half your time at home—in fact, in my case, probably half my time in Adelaide, a quarter of my time at home and a quarter of my time anywhere else in the electorate—you do not get to participate as much as you could. However, if I am home and the alarm goes then I attend. I put on the record though that I am not looking for this protection for myself either. Like the member for Morphett, that is not why I am here talking about this.

There is no doubt that the MFS deserves this protection, and I congratulate the government for giving this protection to the MFS. I also highlight the fact that within the MFS there are paid and retained staff. They are not all the professional firefighters that people would often think of. There are also retained staff who are not full-time firefighters, in fact, a long way from it. Guess what? The full-time, professional, fully paid-up firefighters deserve this protection, but so do the retained MFS firefighters deserve this protection.

There should be no difference, whether they are full-time firefighters or retained MFS staff. But guess what? So do the volunteers. The volunteers deserve exactly the same protection as well. The protection for people doing a job and facing risks on behalf of the community should not be linked to whether they are paid a lot, paid a little or paid nothing. If they are doing it on behalf of the community and they are facing exactly the same risks, they should receive exactly the same protections.

I think any member of parliament would think that. It astounds us over here that a Labor government would not have that right at the core of its principles. I think it should be for absolutely everybody to pursue it that way. To be told, as we have been, that it is just too costly to afford that protection is a very sad thing to hear.

I do think the government is working under a bit of a misapprehension. I think the government may well have it in its mind that you have fully paid-up, full-time MFS firefighters in the metropolitan area ready to fight metropolitan-type fires facing metropolitan-type health risks, and volunteer firefighters out in the country just helping at car crashes, bushfires or grass fires and they are all volunteers. The real world is a very long way from that, very different from that. There is absolutely enormous cross-over.

I think the government is also acting on an unfortunate misconception that CFS and MFS firefighters are different people—very often they are exactly the same person. There are countless retained MFS firefighters who are also CFS volunteers across our state, an enormous number of them. There are CFS brigades working throughout metropolitan Adelaide. There are 16 MFS stations in country South Australia: Kadina, Kapunda, Moonta, Tanunda, Wallaroo, Berri, Loxton, Renmark, Mount Gambier, Murray Bridge, Peterborough, Port Augusta, Port Lincoln, Whyalla, Port Pirie and Victor Harbor, three of which are in the electorate of Stuart that I represent.

Guess what: they very often go to exactly the same incidents and they support each other and they very often do exactly the same work and they very often face exactly the same health risks, so they deserve exactly the same long-term health protection from the government.

Just last night the alarm went off at Port Augusta prison: MFS turned up, CFS turned up, Port Augusta MFS turned up, and Stirling North, our local Port Augusta CFS brigade, turned up. Fortunately, it happened to be a false alarm (as an aside, that happens very often, which, as members would understand, is exceptionally frustrating, particularly for the volunteers). Putting that aside for the moment, they both turned up, and if there had been a problem they both would have done their job and both would have faced exactly the same risks.

So, where we have in these 16 locations across rural South Australia MFS and CFS collocated in the same town, they share the work, they share the risks. Guess what else: in the rest of country South Australia, where we are not fortunate enough to have those 16 MFS stations, the CFS do it all. So, it is not a matter of just saying that you have your fully paid-up firefighters in metropolitan Adelaide putting out skyscrapers on fire, or whatever the movie might tell you is the standard thing, and out in the country you just have local yokel volunteers waving a garden hose on a grass fire—nothing could be further from the truth in both instances. They share the risks, they share the work and they should have the opportunity to share the same protection.

It is a fundamental right that, where the risks are the same, working on behalf of the community, they should not be separated. In fact, it would be, I suspect, quite risky of the government to deliberately do so. I am not a legally-trained person, like a few other people in the house here, but I suspect it may well open up the government to risks of litigation and that sort of thing if the government actively decides, knowing that the risks are the same, to not actually give the same sort of protection.

CFS and MFS both deserve the same quality helmets; they both deserve the same quality personal protective equipment when they go into a fire; and, they both deserve the same level of long-term personal protection too, which covers unfortunate health outcomes related to their work. They both deserve exactly the same protections. The risk to the government's finances from claims is directly related to the chance of a firefighter contracting a very unfortunate disease which is directly related to the participation and involvement that they do. Certainly, if you are a person who is very involved, face lots of risks and participate often, your chance (very unfortunately) is higher. If you are a person who does not participate a lot, and you do not expose yourself to those risks a lot, your chance of contracting one of these diseases is of course lower.

The principle is that the right to the appropriate level of protection is the same for all people; if an MFS person deserves it, a CFS person deserves it. If a paid firefighter deserves it, a volunteer firefighter deserves it. If you do the same job, you deserve the same protection from the government.

Mr PEGLER (Mount Gambier) (21:15): I first of all declare that I am a member of the CFS, and have been for close on 30 years. I do support this bill, but I cannot whilst it does not include CFS volunteers, so I will be voting against it in its present form. The bill reverses the onus of proof for certain types of cancer; those cancers being brain cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukaemia, primary leukaemia, primary site breast cancer, testicular cancer, multiple myeloma, prostate cancer, ureter cancer, colorectal cancer and oesophageal cancer.

The causes of these can be from carcinogens. Often, these carcinogens will be in structures, and if they combust they will give off gases, etc. These carcinogens include formaldehyde, chloroform, styrene and benzene. You will find all of these chemicals in many farm sheds, and you will find many of them in houses and cars. As a volunteer, I have been to many car fires, house fires and shed fires. We, as volunteers, have the same risk as MFS people; the difference is that they probably attend more fires than CFS volunteers, but I am sure that can be worked out in working out whether they could be beneficiaries of this bill.

In my electorate there is the Mount Gambier MFS, which has six full-time firefighters and 24 retained firefighters, and we also have 15 CFS brigades. I have had a great working relationship with both the CFS and MFS in my electorate for many years and I have always encouraged them to work together, and they have worked together exceptionally well. If you go to many fires you will see a yellow truck and a red truck, and of course anybody whose house happens to be on fire is not concerned whether it is a red truck or a yellow truck.

If we pass this bill in its present form, I think it will end up putting a wedge between the MFS and CFS. How can we have a situation where the blokes in the yellow trucks are not protected but the blokes in the red trucks are? I think it is an untenable situation, and until we can take into consideration the CFS volunteers in this bill, I will be voting against it.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (21:19): I also feel compelled to say a few words on this bill. I find it, quite frankly, unbelievably stupid that this Weatherill Labor government does not see fit to recognise the potential cancer risks to CFS volunteers. I say that as I have been a CFS volunteer since 1968 (45 years), and I just wrote down a few minutes ago some of the fires I have attended. They include hay fires, tyre fires, house fires, caravan fires (where we scraped a dead body out of a caravan, I remember, when I was about 18), scrub fires, grass fires, vehicle fires, shed fires, rubbish dump fires with their plastics, jet fuel fumes from aircraft refuelling, etc., chemical fires, and the list goes on. They are just a few I can think of.

I listened to the member for MacKillop, and after what his family went through probably no-one in this place knows better than him the impact of fires on communities, and I listened to others, such as the member for Morphett. The ones in the Labor Party who I cannot believe have not fought this are people like the member for Light, the member for Kaurna, the member for Hartley, the member for Bright, and the member for Mawson. It is not rocket science. They have CFS volunteers right through their electorates who attend fires, road accidents and everything else, yet they have not stood up for their CFS volunteers.

They have allowed them to potentially be left out while they support the MFS paid crews, their union mates, who I have no objection to whatsoever. That is a different ball game, but you cannot have, as I think the member for Morphett said, firefighter apartheid here. That is what you have—firefighter apartheid—and it is absolutely disgraceful. What is wrong with this lot? You want to get out in the community. You are on the nose, completely on the nose, and you ought to wake up to it pretty smartly, quite frankly—or perhaps we should not encourage you to wake up to it.

It was also mentioned here earlier that there used to be a fellow in this place called premier Rann. Remember him? You knifed him and got rid of him. He used to like to get out pretty regularly in front of the cameras and on the TV in his CFS volunteer overalls. You used to see him fairly regularly—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: Well, you can get up and have a go in a minute, if you want to. I have the floor and you do not like it because I have mentioned Mike Rann of blessed memory.

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr PENGILLY: I have mentioned Mike Rann of blessed memory and you do not like it. There was another fellow called Kevin Foley, too, I think, wasn't there? Anyway, they are both gone; you shafted both of them. I cannot believe that you will not factor CFS volunteers into this bill. The Hon. Tammy Franks in another place—she and I are fairly diametrically opposed on many policies—

Members interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: —not eggs and CFS volunteer firefighters—however, on this particular issue, she stood up to be counted. Government members can walk around and look smug and sanctimonious about this and say, 'Oh well, we're right, we're doing the right thing,' but I put it to you that if you have any brains whatsoever you will incorporate CFS volunteers into this bill. It is the only decent thing you can do for the rest of your careers here, some of you; you ought to do this and put it into place.

Over the years, along with other CFS volunteers on this side and around South Australia I have been to multitudes of fires at all hours of the day and night. I think I have said before in this place that I am still a member of my brigade, but I have also had the privilege, until this government wiped out the board (I got wiped out by someone from another place), of being the presiding member of the CFS board for a number of years, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I met the volunteers—at that stage we had 17,000—and a finer group of people you could not meet. I think we are down to about 13,000 now, which is a tragedy.

You on the other side, the current state Labor government, stand condemned if you do not look after CFS volunteers. I do not know how you can sleep at night. I will go to bed and sleep pretty well tonight, but I hope some of you toss and turn, particularly the member for Light, the member for Kaurna, the member for Hartley, the member for Bright, the member for Mawson, and a few others thrown in.

We do have one member in this place, the member for Morialta, who fully understands and recognises that he has CFS active in his electorate, and he will fight hard to try to get some sort of decent coverage for them as far as insurance goes, but the rest of you, you are a disgrace. You are an absolute disgrace. You should not be in this place if you do not support all forms of volunteers.

How you have allowed this to go through your caucus and screw the CFS volunteers has got me beat. It has completely got me beat. It is outrageous, and I just hope that when the day of judgement comes the people of South Australia know exactly what you have done and what you have not done. You have just set about and shafted country kids by putting a curfew on them in one bill. Now you are so stupid you are going to wipe out the CFS volunteers in the next one. You stand condemned.

Mr BROCK (Frome) (21:25): I also rise to speak on this bill. I congratulate the government on bringing this bill forward, as the member for Mount Gambier indicated, but I will not support the bill in its current form. The main reason is the omission of CFS. I am not going to go over the whole lot, but other members have spoken very clearly and very passionately about the value of volunteers, not only in firefighting, but in volunteering across all of regional South Australia and also the metropolitan area. We need to recognise that and ensure that they have the same opportunities and protection as everybody else.

I would just like to go back to when the Deputy Premier introduced the bill on 19 June 2013. He indicated that this measure would ensure that from 1 July 2013 South Australian MFS firefighters, including retained firefighters, would be covered. The question there—and it has not been mentioned in here—concerns some of the retained firefighters. They are the ones in locations such as Port Pirie, Port Lincoln and others where there is an MFS facility in a regional area.

Mr Pegler: And Mount Gambier.

Mr BROCK: And Mount Gambier; sorry, member for Mount Gambier. Some of those retained firefighters are also CFS volunteers. My question to the Deputy Premier is, how will they decipher if one of those retained firefighters does unfortunately contract one of these cancerous diseases? How are they going to decipher that issue? On 5 November 2012, the press release from Premier Jay Weatherill stated:

We have seen the terrible headaches caused when people working with dangerous materials are not acknowledged for the risks they take.

He also went on to say:

We will join the Commonwealth and become the first state in only the third country in the world to recognise and compensate firefighter cancer. Scientific studies across the world have demonstrated that firefighters are at greater risk of developing certain types of cancer through direct exposure to materials as part of their job.

The question there is very clear. In my opinion, the Premier makes it quite clear about firefighters. That press release does not distinguish between retained or separating CFS. They are all firefighters in my opinion. The workers rehabilitation minister at the time, Jack Snelling, said:

The onus of proof should no longer be on those who risk their lives for our safety every day. If a firefighter develops a specific cancer, they will be automatically covered under our workers' compensation claim.

I think some of those press releases are very misleading. They say firefighters, and by firefighters they should be including the volunteers, the CFS and the retained and full-time MFS people. I am not a member of the CFS.

An honourable member: Shame!

Mr BROCK: Shame; I realise that.

An honourable member: We'll get you signed up.

Mr BROCK: Get me signed up. In my previous job I did not have the time to be firefighting, but in my electorate I am very fortunate to have the MFS. They have retained and they have full-time firefighters, and I also have 18 CFS locations across the electorate of Frome. Those 18 CFS locations do exactly the same as our MFS firefighters. They go out there and they fight fires. They also go out there and attend road traffic accidents. They attend a lot of stuff there.

The ones from Napperby, Crystal Brook and Port Broughton also assist the MFS people in Port Pirie. They are full time. We have volunteers, retained and MFS personnel going to a same incident, inhaling the same odours, smoke or vapours. If somebody from the MFS or a retained and also a CFS volunteer contract one of these cancers, are we going to leave that CFS person out?

I believe that this bill, in this current format, is discriminatory. I cannot support it in its format and I would very strongly urge the government to just put three letters into this bill: CFS. If this bill does not get through in this place, I am hoping that in the upper house it is pulled apart and a bit of common sense is put into it.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (21:30): I rise to speak on the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation (SAMFS Firefighters) Amendment Bill. I echo the thoughts of people on this side of the chamber. We think this is a great bill with respect to compensation with regard to certain cancers that can be picked up by metropolitan firefighters, but we wonder why the government has this discrimination in place with regard to Country Fire Service volunteers. I will note my interest: I am a CFS volunteer. I have been for many years. Probably because of this job I do not get to as many fires as I would like to.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, that's it. Not that I am looking for fires to fight, I must say. It is just that you do not have the availability to be as close to the truck as when I was working on the farm, being only three kilometres from the local Coomandook fire shed. It is interesting that the government completely disregards the needs of about 13,500 volunteers who operate with 425 brigades in this state and who operate over 850 trucks. That is not insignificant in anyone's language.

The Country Fire Service attends about 8,000 incidents every year—another not insignificant number. If people think the Country Fire Service just goes out to the odd bushfire, where the odd harvester lights a fire or there is a lightening strike—and we had a few of them late last year; I certainly had one on my property—think again. They attend very similar, and sometimes the same fires as MFS units attend. The CFS attends bushfires, structure and motor vehicle fires—with many structure fires the MFS are involved as well—road crash rescue, hazardous material spills and, as I said, are a great support for the Metropolitan Fire Service.

There are CFS brigades right throughout my electorate, and we have a Metropolitan Fire Service in Murray Bridge and they fight fires side by side. Whether they are structure fires, road traffic fires, all of those incidents are attended by people from both corps of firefighting. It is interesting, if you look at what happens with the highway work—I am mainly talking about the Dukes Highway now, down near where I live at Coomandook.

We have brigades like Coonalpyn just south of my electorate in the member for MacKillop's electorate, which are set up for road crash rescue with breathing apparatus. Obviously, we are only about 20-odd kilometres up the road from there towards Adelaide at Coomandook and we have a 34 and also a 9,000 litre tanker truck. So, we are pretty well serviced by the CFS. Apart from the other trucks, they are very close on other highways around us in other locations.

It is interesting, you talk to blokes who have been in the CFS for a few years, especially the guys and ladies who are involved in the vehicle crash rescue teams, and some of them are just having a year off. I know one man who is having a year off this year because he has seen enough. He has seen enough, as the member for Morphett indicated, of truck accidents, cars going under trucks, rollovers, vehicles going off the road, having to deal with burning vehicles and—

Dr McFetridge interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Absolutely. Burnt bodies—and as the member for Morphett said, sometimes people come across someone they know, especially in a small community. We have had some horrors. At Coonalpyn there was an unfortunate incident on the highway where a man was hit by several large trucks, and it was a terrible sight for people to deal with as volunteers but they got on with the job. That goes home with these volunteers, and that is why I am not surprised that some of these people have decided they just need a year or so off to ease the mind. They will get back into it when they have their mind right.

This is the volunteer work these people do day in day out. They do not ask for a lot of things but they just like a bit of recognition. I look at what happens with a lot of these road traffic accidents and, because we just don't have the numbers of police out there, it is the CFS personnel who become the road traffic management personnel. They shouldn't have to do it but they do it because that is what has to happen in the first instance because there are not the police numbers that close. In fact, we have one police officer stationed at Coonalpyn and it is just not enough when you have a massive incident and you need people to do the traffic management around these sites.

When there is a fatality—and it happens too often for my liking—the Dukes Highway gets shut down and they have to wait for the road crash incident team to come down from the city and then the volunteers have to be in place so what happened gets worked out and the site gets cleaned up, and that can be many hours that these people aren't doing their jobs. Many of these people are self-employed on farms but some are working for different industries around the place and different jobs in the surrounding area. So, it is a huge commitment.

I would like to note a group training day that the local CFS through the Swanport Group and, apart from trucks from the Murray Bridge area and further south down my way to Coonalpyn and Coomandook, there were trucks there from down towards Salt Creek and also trucks from north of Murray Bridge, and their training was about a whole range of fires. It was about assisting the SES in doing fires in boats on the river. There was structure fire training and, apart from that, what happens in many places is the standard bushfire training where you are either turning grass fires or crop fires or stubble fires.

CFS volunteers deserve to be acknowledged, they deserve to be part of this bill to have the same compensation eligibility as MFS firefighters and they should not be discriminated against. They should have their day in the sun. They do a great job for this state and it is about time the government recognised that.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (21:39): I want to enter this debate briefly because there is a bit of emotion running here and I have a strong feeling about this. When the member for Finniss was talking he mentioned the words 'firefighters apartheid'. Well, that is exactly what this is. I just cannot believe it. When you look at this and consider what this is trying to do, I cannot believe it.

We must factor in the CFS to this bill. I cannot understand how anybody could say you shouldn't. How can you give the privilege of protection to a select few, overlooking totally the volunteers who are doing the same job? How can you exclude CFS? Are they not worthy of the same privilege of protection given the retained firefighters, particularly when some are serving in both roles? Our CFS often has a heavier workload than the MFS. I have served in many communities where there were both. I mentioned Kapunda. In our communities they are subject to many hazardous situations. This is the CFS.

Not only do they fight fires, they are often involved with hazardous chemicals. They attend car and truck accidents, using the jaws-of-life. They attend medical emergencies, which include fatalities. How can the government discriminate in this way? Who looks after an injured or a cancer-affected CFS or SES volunteer? I have mentioned the SES because they have not been mentioned before. I cannot see how they should be any different.

This cost is paid by the volunteer's employer, who already subsidises the wages of these gallant people when they are out fighting our fires, especially during working hours. I do not believe that the employer should have to pay these costs. I am amazed that these people go out and fight fires and the people who are paying the wages are never compensated. I cannot believe that, in this day and age, that goes totally unchecked and, I think, generally unrecognised.

This is discrimination at its worst. The worst situation is when the CFS attend road fatalities. I take my hat off to them. I could not do what they do. For young men, handling deceased people—sometimes they know them—leaves emotional scars. They are certainly entitled to rehabilitation, counselling and compensation if they cannot go back to work. Why should the employer pick up and absorb that cost? That is what happens today. It is not on, and it is not fair.

I pay tribute, yet again, to our volunteers: our CFS and SES. I publicly thank them and honour them and will do all I can to assist. We have seen the demise of the volunteers with St John Ambulance during the time I have been here. Do you want the CFS to go the same way? It cannot happen, because we could not afford to pay enough professionals to give the same protection that the CFS gives us so well. I cannot believe that the government, if it is going to introduce a bill like this, can exclude the CFS. I pay tribute to them and I hope the government will see its way clear to amend the bill to add the CFS and SES.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (21:42): Can I thank everyone for their contributions today. I know they were all sincerely meant and everyone who spoke has a passion about the role the volunteers play, particularly the people in the CFS. I appreciate and respect that, absolutely. Can I say though that most of the contributions, in the end, sought out a straw man and then belted the straw man to death, and that is unfortunate because—

Ms Chapman: We don't need to. You've already crushed him.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Alright; fair enough. I just want to clarify a few brief matters which might be of assistance to members of the house. First of all, there is no argument between anybody in this house that the MFS people should be recognised as they are in this bill—that, at least, we agree upon. Whatever happens here today, it would be a disaster if that was not able to proceed and proceed swiftly. The second thing is none of us—and I am talking about the whole of the government but, in particular, my ministerial colleague the Minister for Emergency Services and I—would raise any issue about the valuable work done by the CFS.

Dr McFetridge: Well, put your money where your mouth is, John.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Hear me out. I am building up to a crescendo here. It takes a few moments, but it will still be quicker than yours.

Mr Venning: You're younger.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: That's right, I'm a bit younger. Anyway, back to the main topic. So, there is no issue about the value of the CFS—they are valued, no question. In fact, can I actually say that, again, my ministerial colleague the Minister for Emergency Services spent a great deal of time and a great deal of energy working on this problem and has tried to resolve the matter in a way which would accommodate all people as much as any resolution of a problem can accommodate everybody. I want to place on record my appreciation of the amount of work he has done in that regard. I will tell everybody a little bit later about where he got to and where we are now.

I make the other point, too, which some people raised, in particular the member for Bragg. This is not an issue about people not being covered: this is an issue about whether there is a presumption that they are going to be compensated, which the compensating authority has to reverse. It is not a question about them having no cover at all.

I want to place on the record three questions that I have for the opposition. In fact, I have just thought of a fourth. First, assuming you were fortunate enough to be chosen by the people of South Australia to form a government in March of next year, what exactly is your policy in detail in relation to this? Secondly, what is—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —the cost to the state budget of your proposal as moved? The third question is: if you do not know what the cost of your proposal as moved is to the state budget, is that not a pretty irresponsible position for a would-be government to bring in to this chamber, where you are moving amendments to a government bill, which will have an impact on the Treasury—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —and you cannot tell us what the impact of this will be?

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The member for Bragg interjects that I can't tell the house. The member for Bragg is quite right, because these amendments were filed at 12:29pm on 12 September and I do not as yet have an actuarial report on the impact this change would have. Can I tell you what I do know? These are some facts. As at the 2012 annual report, which was utilised by the actuaries in relation to this, there were—and you can write these down if you like—887 career firefighters, 226 retained firefighters and there were 9,424 CFS volunteers. The past firefighters, that is those who left service or retired: 434 career firefighters, 1,265 retained firefighters and—get your pencil out—32,947 volunteer firefighters.

In relation to this matter, there are a range of costings in the documentation. What we have—and we will make all of this available between the houses—

Ms Chapman: Why not now?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I can give you this now, but it does not help us with yours because we do not know what yours is going to cost yet. I can tell you this: the annual cost in relation to—

Mr Pederick: So you didn't cost it to see what it would cost?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It's your proposal, member for Hammond, for God's sake. It's your proposal.

Mr Pederick: You're discriminatory.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: What, discriminating against silly people for not costing their proposals? I don't think so. Anyway, the annual cost of claims for career firefighters, including the retained firefighters—and this is important: the retained firefighters have to have a certain number of callouts before they qualify—

Mr Pengilly: So what's your point? They're all firefighters, John.

Ms Chapman: No excuse.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Oh, for God's sake! I will start again. I am trying to explain this. If you—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —read it afterwards, it will make sense. The annual cost for career firefighters, including the retained, who have a certain number of callouts—not just for periods but a certain number of callouts—is $2.58 million. That is the effect of the bill. I can tell you this: if CFS firefighters were conservatively included, according to the material I have here, on one particular set of assumptions we are talking about $24.95 million additional. There is another set of assumptions here which say, and I quote:

We have estimated the maximum annual cost of cancer claims for the CFS to be $36.2 million with—

Ms Chapman: Who's 'we'?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The actuaries.

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Point of order.

Ms CHAPMAN: If the Attorney is referring to a report or material I ask him to table the report.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am happy to give you the material—

Ms CHAPMAN: Good.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —but can I finish explaining it? I told you I would give you that before, for goodness sake. I will start the quote again:

We have estimated the maximum annual cost of cancer claims for the CFS to be $36.2 million with qualifying periods and $84.8 million without qualifying periods. The above estimate can be seen as a maximum cost as it assumes that—

and then it goes on. What I am saying to members here is this: my colleague the Minister for Emergency Services has attempted to find a situation whereby, in effect, the CFS would accept that they could be brought within this umbrella on the same basic set of criteria as the retained firefighters and there has not been an agreement to that proposal. They have said, 'That is not good enough.'

What I say to the members is this: first of all, on this side of the house there is no prejudice against the CFS. We agree with the general principle that like should be treated alike, but alike is not alike simply because somebody has the word firefighter as part of their name or part of their job description.

There are some CFS people who act, I am sure, a lot of the time in ways that is very difficult to separate from the way MFS people operate, and many of them would be in the peri-urban area and they probably attend similar sort of fires to the fires that the MFS people would attend. Nobody on this side of the house wishes to say that those people, if they are suffering similar exposures to MFS people who are doing similar work, should be in any way disadvantaged by reason of them simply being in the CFS and not the MFS. You do not have an argument with us about that.

The issue is about simply roping everybody who is in the CFS ever—their numbers are, I remind you, currently 9,424 and past 32,947—without any reference to what sort of exposure they have had and number of attendances and say, 'All of you automatically go in.'

If you do that, members of the opposition, I would like you to make it very clear that you intend to do that and that you do so acknowledging the cost to the taxpayer of that and that part of your proposal—your manifesto in March of next year—will be to include however many tens of millions that is in your budget document that you produce for the people of South Australia. If you are prepared to do that and you are prepared to rope everybody in without further consideration, that is fine. You are entitled to pursue that course and we will hold you to account for that.

My suggestion is that we proceed with the matter as it presently is here, the present bill. My ministerial colleague the Minister for Emergency Services—who has been here throughout this debate and takes an active interest in this matter—and I are both happy between the houses to talk to people about this. I am happy to try and get a costing on the member for MacKillop's proposal and if it turns out that that is something we can accommodate within responsible budgetary constraints we will take that matter to cabinet and we will seek a decision about that matter.

But at the moment, because we do not know how much the member for MacKillop's proposal would cost—and we don't; we will find out, but presently we don't—it would be an irresponsible thing for us to accept something uncosted with no indication of the effect from a budgetary perspective. The smaller the impact of this, I can say to the members of the opposition, the greater the chance is that there will be some resolution possible between the houses.

Bill read a second time.


[Sitting extended beyond 22:00 on motion of Hon. J.R. Rau]


Committee Stage

In committee.

The CHAIR: My advice is that we postpone clause 1 because the amendment is dependent on subsequent amendments.

Consideration of clause 1 deferred.

Clauses 2 and 3 passed.

Clause 4.

Mr WILLIAMS: I move:

Amendment No 2 [Williams-1]—

Page 3, lines 6 and 7 [clause 4(3), inserted subsection (2a)(c)]—Delete 'by the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service ("SAMFS")'

The minister's summing up of the second reading was quite interesting. He gave us some figures and some information which the opposition has not had access to previously. This bill has been around for a long time. As I said earlier in my second reading contribution, the government signalled it was moving this way almost 12 months ago, the bill was listed for debate several weeks ago and we now find ourselves here, late in the evening, when, suddenly, the government comes forth with this information. It may have been helpful if the government came and sought to negotiate with the opposition at an earlier point.

The opposition accepts the issue that the minister raised with regard to the differences between a retained firefighter in the MFS and a full-time MFS operative. If the minister recalls a very brief conversation we had earlier in the evening, I was alluding to that same sort of structure with regard to the opposition's desire to have CFS recognised in a not dissimilar way to MFS.

We have not argued that every member of the CFS should have automatic cover. Just like I believe it is the government's intention to have regulations which would make some sort of distinction between retained firefighters and full-time operatives, we would accept that the exact same sort of criteria should relate to CFS volunteers. However, we are not prepared to accept that this bill go through the parliament giving this cover to MFS operatives with the idea that at some stage, somewhere in the future, there may be some successful negotiation to bring the CFS on board.

It is our belief that if this parliament sees that there is a wrong that needs to be righted, which we accept in the case the minister put—that we all accept that this is an issue that must be addressed—we are arguing that it must be addressed for everybody who faces exposure. We do not accept that one group that faces exposure should be dealt with today and others who face a not dissimilar exposure, as we have been arguing, will be put off to some time in the future.

We believe that we need to address the problem for everybody who faces exposure, even though the level of exposure or the risk may vary. The minister has already indicated that there will be a distinction between retained firefighters and full-time firefighters within the MFS, and that is what we expected, and we expect a similar sort of ranking would be made for CFS volunteers. The fact that the Minister for Emergency Services, at this stage, has been unable to come up with a formula or an agreed position with the CFS, we accept.

However, what we are saying is, 'Go and do the work,' because we are going to stick to our guns on this one. We are not going to accept a position where one group of firefighters is disadvantaged and left on the never-never. I have moved the amendment, and I implore the government to accept this position because, as I said earlier, it is my very strong belief that this is the reality that will come out of the other place. You will be faced with this reality, so let's get on with it and fix it now.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I need to emphasise again that I do not think there is a great deal of difference in principle between what the member for MacKillop is putting and what the Minister for Emergency Services and I have been trying to communicate to the parliament about this matter. I say again that he has spent an enormous amount of time attempting to find a consensus position on this.

What everyone in this room needs to accept is that it may be, as between the parliament and the CFS, there is no consensus position. It may well be that the parliament has to actually make a decision which, although it will treat like people with like people, will not satisfy all the demands or aspirations of the CFS. We remain open, and I say again on the Hansard that both the Minister for Emergency Services and I remain open to having a conversation about that between the houses.

I also say that we will be opposing these amendments but, for the reason I said before, they are uncosted and we have not, as yet, had a proper opportunity to fully explore every alternative. If we were to accept these amendments now, we would be accepting something uncosted and we would eliminate the possibility of getting perhaps a better outcome, which is what we all want—I think we all agree on that.

Can I just add another matter as a 'by the way'. The honourable member mentioned the possibility of dealing with regulations. Just as much as he is certain that the other place may have a view something like this, I am pretty certain that the other place, and in particular one gentleman well known to him, has a particular view about regulations. It would be a departure from his normal behaviour and theirs if they suddenly became enamoured of a regulation to solve these problems. Usually their attitude is, 'We want to see it in the bill.' If the member for MacKillop has worked out a way of solving that problem up there I want to have a chat to him after parliament gets up tonight because I would love to know the secret of getting that one communicated effectively up there.

We are opposing these amendments at this time in this place purely for technical reasons, not—and I emphasise this—because we are saying that we have given up on this issue, not because we are saying that we have some 'apartheid mentality', I think the histrionic term was, not for that reason at all, but because, at this point in time, we cannot be satisfied that this is the best way of delivering the outcome which I believe all of us are basically trying to achieve, and we also do not know what this particular model would cost. For those reasons and those reasons alone, we oppose it at the moment.

Dr McFETRIDGE: On this particular amendment including the CFS volunteers, the amendment is quite specific in that it includes all firefighters. The letter to the Minister for Emergency Services from the CFS Volunteers Association stated:

The CFSVA has been directed by CFS volunteers to seek equality for all firefighters and therefore views the inclusion of only the 800 volunteers who meet the exposure quota as unacceptable. The current legislation offers protection to all firefighters equally, however the 'average exposures' proposal for the Presumptive Legislation would create a tiered system which excludes the majority of CFS volunteers.

The letter goes on to state:

The precarious and unknown nature of firefighting and the potential exposure CFS volunteer firefighters face each time they respond to an emergency; placing their lives and the future of their family at jeopardy cannot be compromised.

The committee divided on the amendment:

AYES (14)
Brock, G.G. Chapman, V.A. Evans, I.F.
Gardner, J.A.W. McFetridge, D. Pederick, A.S.
Pegler, D.W. Pengilly, M. Pisoni, D.G.
Redmond, I.M. Sanderson, R. van Holst Pellekaan, D.C.
Venning, I.H. Williams, M.R. (teller)
NOES (19)
Atkinson, M.J. Bedford, F.E. Bignell, L.W.K.
Breuer, L.R. Close, S.E. Conlon, P.F.
Fox, C.C. Geraghty, R.K. Hill, J.D.
Key, S.W. Koutsantonis, A. O'Brien, M.F.
Odenwalder, L.K. Piccolo, A. Rau, J.R. (teller)
Sibbons, A.J. Snelling, J.J. Thompson, M.G.
Vlahos, L.A.
PAIRS (12)
Marshall, S.S. Weatherill, J.W.
Hamilton-Smith, M.L.J. Rankine, J.M.
Griffiths, S.P. Kenyon, T.R.
Goldsworthy, M.R. Bettison, Z.L.
Treloar, P.A. Caica, P.
Whetstone, T.J. Portolesi, G.

Majority of 5 for the noes.

Amendment negatived; clause thus passed.

Remaining clauses (4 and 5), schedule and title passed.

Clause 1 passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (22:13): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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