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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-03-15 Daily Xml
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ALERT SA

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (14:35): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Can you please sit down, member for Torrens, until we have some order in the place. Members on my right can go out as easily as members on my left. Can we please bring some semblance of order back into question time. Member for Torrens.

Mrs GERAGHTY: Thank you. As I said, my question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. Can the minister inform the house about the details of a new one-stop website to further assist South Australians in planning ahead during an emergency?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:36): I thank the member for Torrens for her question. Last Wednesday, I was pleased to launch a new website, that links the social media feeds from the State Emergency Services into one site, called Alert SA. Alert SA brings together social media messages from the South Australian police, the CFS, the MFS, the SES (the State Emergency Services)—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Bragg!

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: —and the Bureau of Meteorology. I was pleased to see that within 10 minutes of being informed of Tuesday's fire at Wingfield updates from the agencies involved were posted on Alert SA. Yesterday, I was joined by the member for Port Adelaide to inspect the damage at the site and to talk with people on the ground who, throughout the incident, have done a magnificent job.

Alert SA is part of our ongoing effort to assist communities when an emergency strikes. Alert SA is no substitute for common sense or for being prepared and having plans in place. It joins a suite of other social media services, such as the smartphone apps and the websites of the individual agencies, as one way to stay informed. The site can be reached at www.alert.sa.gov.au and is based on a similar model used by Queensland emergency services during the 2011 floods.

During these floods, with 90 per cent of Queensland affected, we saw how the population relied on social media messages from police to stay informed and keep safe. At the height of the emergency, Queensland police had 39 million exchanges in 24 hours on its social media site. This is the equivalent of 450 views per second. There is no doubt that it was a turning point in the way emergency services communicate with the public, and we recognised that we needed our own local version.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: This site is clearly a very valuable tool to ensure that the messages of all of our services are available in the one spot. Alert SA is hosted outside the government website. This means that if either it or one of our emergency service websites were to go down a backup site with the same information would be available.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Well, this is one measure; it is not a golden bullet.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: No, it is no substitute—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: No, it's not a silver bullet either, and it is no substitute for people being prepared and making sure that they have other measures in place to ensure their safety. It is one way of getting consistent messages out to people in one place. There will never be a substitute for being ready. As I said, this is just an extra tool in helping to plan ahead and stay informed when a crisis arises.

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