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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-04-05 Daily Xml
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EMERGENCY SERVICES FUNDING

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:45): I move:

That this house—

(a) condemns the state government for failing to provide adequate funding to the CFS and SES; and

(b) instructs the Auditor-General to report on the collection and expenditure of the emergency services levy.

The emergency services levy was introduced here in South Australia in 1999 to fund the provision of emergency services in South Australia. It was revealed recently (and this is just one example) that there was a $180,000 shortfall to carry out necessary upgrades to one CFS station, and that is the one at Stirling. The shortfall in funds to upgrade the infrastructure at Stirling is not the only example that has been brought to my attention. The government is failing to fund the CFS properly.

I noted the other day that this was on the radio and the accusation was made that Stirling CFS is looking for something palatial. Far from it: all they are trying to do is replace a bit of the station which is the bays for parking government-owned trucks. They are not replacing their training room, which is only sufficient to accommodate 12 people and they have to try to train 40 people there. They are not trying to replace the kitchen, which has been condemned (there is mould there).

This replacement has been designed by the CFS headquarters people and the main cost is for removing asbestos from the old building and fixing it so that the height is sufficient to take the new trucks, because the current height will not allow appliances to be backed into the area. I cannot understand this. This is all about safety and protecting our volunteers. Asbestos, as we know, is a health risk. I cannot understand why the government would short-circuit them on that.

There are many branches across the state that we would all know about that have to wait, in some cases, for over six months for protective clothing to be made available for their volunteers. One contact I had was from the member for Goyder's electorate and I spoke to him about it and it was well known. One branch, in particular, had an influx of new members in September-October last year and they are still waiting for their protective clothing. This meant that they were unable to provide emergency services that they volunteered to undertake. In other words, they were not allowed onto the truck to attend the fires because they did not have the recommended protective clothing.

How ridiculous is that? Isn't that what the CFS and SES is all about? I cannot understand why that would be the case. I have had some private discussions—and I will not detail them here because private discussions should remain just that—and, certainly, I let my concern be known to some of the people who make these decisions, particularly when calling for the supply of the clothing.

It has become apparent, though, that the state government funding for the CFS is falling way short of what is required to enable the volunteers to carry out the vital emergency services that they do, and what we expect them to do. A full report regarding the collection and expenditure of the Emergency Services Levy is needed. How much is actually spent on the fire ground and how much is spent/wasted in administration, squad cars, control vehicles, etc., needs to be clarified. It needs to be exposed so we can see where the money is going.

We now seem to have a flotilla of vehicles—multicoloured and bristling with aerials and lights—where once we just had fire trucks. I am afraid to say, or admit it, that bureaucracy has crept into the CFS, and it annoys me that the chain of command is now in the hands of non-local professional people—and I use that word 'professional' advisedly. They are bureaucrats. Some were once volunteers, but the peak cap brigade seems to be appealing to some.

I have had hands-on experience over many years. I have made comments before but I will not repeat them. It was usually my job at fires to light them, to light fire breaks against the road in front of the fire. It was quite a dangerous thing to be doing, I can tell members, but I had an experienced local person with me. I did name one, that is, Mr Frank Landers from Gladstone, who was a fire control officer, and he knew what he was doing. I was with him one day when he said, 'Well, we'll light this fire, but we'll wait here on this road until the fire comes down that hill,' and it did. We were between Georgetown and that fire. We lit that fire across that road, and amazingly the fire that we lit did not go down the hill towards Georgetown it went back toward the fire and put it out. That is what local knowledge can do. It really has annoyed me that when you get on the fire ground now the chain of command is the guy in the peak cap giving all the orders—usually over a radio—and the local guy is often not consulted.

The whole thing needs to be looked at, particularly in relation to where the money is being spent. I say: all power to the volunteers who give their time and take these risks protecting the communities. We should at least fund adequate clothing, modern and safe facilities—particularly in relation to Stirling—and safe, reliable vehicles. I take my hat off to them. They are vital to many of our country communities. As all my country colleagues would know, particularly the CFS in country areas—and the SES to a lesser degree, but it is still prominent and worthwhile—does more than just keep these CFS stations open: they are the lifeblood of some of these communities.

They have large auxiliaries that raise money for the local brigade and other organisations. They are the local catering group. If you are getting married in a country town you ring up the CFS and get catering organised, and a strong lady will make sure that everything is done for you. To many of these people this is not only a fundraising exercise but also a community experience; it is a pastime for these communities. For some of these people it is the only outlet they have apart from their workplace.

The activities of the CFS and the SES are a vital part of country communities, and I take my hat off to these volunteers I could never praise them enough because it is all done by volunteers—no remuneration. Also at this moment I pay huge credit to the people who employ these volunteers, because when the fire siren goes and you are halfway through servicing the motor car for the local mechanic or the local dealership, it is down tools and you run. The owner wears that loss of time. It is on the owner of the business; and I have hardly ever, ever heard of any owner of a business who has in his employ CFS or SES volunteers complain about it, and it ought to be recognised.

It annoys me when you come to charge these people an emergency services levy that they get no assistance at all. I do believe that it ought to be looked at. It ought to be said to these people, 'Well, you certainly pick up the tab when these people go to the fire,' because the lads still get paid. They do not get a pay dock. The employer wears all that, they absorb all that. So not only should the owners of a business get some subsidy in relation to the emergency services levy (in fact, they get nothing at all), so should the volunteers. They do the work, they make the effort, they go to training, they do all this extra, yet we still hit them for an emergency services levy. I think that is rather unfair.

It is a pretty emotive issue out there, and I would urge the house to consider this and at least ask the Auditor-General to have a look at how much is being spent, where it is being spent and could it be spent more wisely because I think that, if we do not do the right thing, if these people decide to hang up their helmets and their boots and not do it, where would we be? I do not think it bears thinking about. I hope that the house will support the motion.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (11:53): I wish to rise in support of the member for Schubert and his motion. Having worked in local government for 27 years before coming into this place, I had a very close involvement with a lot of brigades when it came to actually building new facilities prior to the commencement of the emergency services levy in 1999. Before that a calculation was done to determine what our local contribution would be to a station upgrade, and it was based upon the capacity of that local government authority to fund part of it. In the majority of cases—certainly in regional areas—the CFS board would contribute the majority of the funding. Many other times if you were a wealthier area it might be the other way around; but a long-running issue for communities has been the funding needed for these emergency services facilities.

I do put on the record my very great appreciation because, in the last 12 months, we have had the opening of the Hamley Bridge and Balaklava CFS stations. I was at the opening of both those facilities. I commend the government on its level of expenditure in those areas. Certainly for the volunteers in those brigades it is a wonderful recognition of the commitment they have made over a lot of years to try to service the emergency services needs of their community. If you look around, you will see that what you get at the stations these days is just amazing compared with what it was 30 years ago, with the comms areas, general facilities, kitchen, meeting room and training facilities, in addition to the equipment provided.

The fact is that there is never going to be quite enough money to fund what every person would want. All brigades have a level of patience built into their attitude; they understand that, yes, they put a bid in through their group officer, which then goes up through the chain, and eventually they get the tick to confirm they will receive their money within a few years. There are sometimes delays, such as with Balaklava and Hamley Bridge, which was caused by a dispute with a contractor regarding the final delivery time of that station, but the end result is a good one.

The great frustration I have at the moment is more to do with the personal protective equipment, which was also referred to by the member for Schubert. He and I were contacted by a brigade from Port Vincent regarding the frustrations they had experienced. The brigade had orders in for PPE for six months, and they could not get it. They had had new people come into the town who had put up their hand to become a volunteer and go through the training. They wanted to jump on a truck and be able to respond to incidents, but they could not because they could not get their personal protective equipment.

In the contact I had with officers and general members of the Port Vincent brigade, it was clear that they were really fearful that they would lose their volunteers. That is a great shame. These people have committed six months to do the necessary training, they are in a position where they can respond and take some of the pressure off some of the older members in their community who have been in the CFS for 30 years, in a lot of cases—I have seen people presented with badges that identify really long commitments to this—and there was just an abject level of frustration.

The brigade worked hard to get off the ground, they have people in the community who are interested in becoming volunteers, but they cannot get the most basic requirement—equipment. One guy, who has been a member for over 25 years, contacted me via email to say that his boots actually have holes in them, and he has been wearing the same overalls for 20 years. He cannot get replacement equipment; he has had to wait an unacceptable amount of time. We have had some contact with the minister's office, and I really hope that the contract issue regarding who provides the personal protective equipment will be resolved quickly so that brigades have an acceptable time frame from when an order is placed to its delivery, because we have to get it right.

The Minister for Road Safety, in an announcement made earlier this week, stated that it is important for all South Australians who will be on the road over the next week or so to respect that they are in a dangerous situation, and to take extra special care, because none of us want to see any tragedies. I take this opportunity to make special mention of the Port Wakefield CFS, which is probably one of the busiest brigades in the state when it comes to responding to road traumas. The number of times their volunteers have been called to pull someone out of a wreck, or indeed pull a body out of a wreck, would be horrendous even to consider.

CFS and SES volunteers are a special group of people who live in our communities, and it is important that we get this most basic thing right. There will always be debates about where the money comes from. The emergency services levy was not necessarily accepted by everybody when it was introduced in 1999; I know there was a difficult political debate, and questions were asked about the collection costs—which at one stage, I think, were in the range of about 14 per cent of the money received, but it is now down to a bit less than 3 per cent, which is a far more acceptable level.

Let's make sure that we put a system in place where budgeted funds from Treasury—the emergency services fund—provides the dollars that we need to keep these people on the ground. Communities are going through a bit of a transition; we have had a really strong sense of volunteering for decades, and our communities have been build by volunteer aspects. Now, with a lot more double-income families, people are busy. They may still commit to the sporting stuff, but community groups such as Lions, APEX and Rotary are starting to suffer, and CFS, ambulance and SES crews suffer too.

All the emergency services are out there trying to recruit people; they can get the training for them, and what they really want is the equipment, so it is appropriate that the member for Schubert bring this motion before the house. It is important that the Auditor-General has some review over this to ensure that the money is being collected and expended appropriately. Let's hope that the debate that occurs in this chamber actually ensures that the people who really do count—our volunteers—get all the support they need. I commend the motion.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:00): I support this motion by the member for Schubert which condemns the state government for failing to provide adequate funding to the CFS and SES and wants the Auditor-General instructed to report on the collection and expenditure of the emergency services levy.

I also am a member of the CFS, and there are many members in our area. Sadly, a lot of the work they do is not fighting fires. Mind you, when they are called out to fight fires, they are ready, willing and able to go out. A lot of the work, being on the Dukes Highway at Coomandook, is highway crashes. This can cause the members to be out all night, and it might be operating a road block so that traffic can be put around a scene or, if there has been a fatality in a road smash, they have to assist in blocking the road completely.

A lot of the time—and I do not think this should have to be done by our volunteers—they are out there directing traffic. So, there are not enough resources out there so that we have the appropriate numbers of police to direct the traffic around these scenes. What we have—and it has happened—is fatalities, perhaps someone is dead in a vehicle or has been knocked off a pushbike. There was a very tragic case near Coonalpyn in recent times.

The first people on the scene are usually members of the CFS; a lot of them are farmers. They have to deal with the horrors of the initial accident. They have to manage that, position their trucks at each end of the scene on a major highway, and they are getting instructions from further afield that they have to manage the traffic risk. To me, this is taking advantage of volunteers. The police should be dispatched immediately so that this can be managed in the appropriate way. I note that with some of these incidents, if they are extended incidents and the roads have to be closed for an extended period due to fatality or major incident, major crash have to come down from Adelaide to investigate—and that is fair enough, I appreciate that. However, next thing, not only do you have the CFS volunteers involved but also the department of transport staff or contractors. I think we need to be fairer to our Country Fire Service volunteers. They need more support, especially in these incidents.

It is not just these things they have to do; as part of these highway accidents, a lot of these times they have to be instant social workers. I have spoken in this place before about one of my friends who has had to sit on top of an overturned truck that has been involved in a bad accident. I believe it was a fatal accident. The truck driver could not get out. He was fine as long as they could get him out; he was not under threat of death, I believe. This truck was tipped over and my friend just had to sit on top of the upturned truck and talk him through it. There are a lot of events like this that people do not realise our volunteers have to deal with.

Sometimes the fires are the simple ones. With scrub fires, you generally wait outside the event and make sure that you can hit it when it gets to the clear country. I want to reiterate that our Country Fire Service crews right around the state have to deal with issues like road trauma and any kind of fire—bushfire, house fire, industrial fire. They get the appropriate training. You could argue that they need to have more training because there is never enough training.

I note in relation to the Coonalpyn CFS, they are trying to move stations. There are some issues down there with some council land. But we have seen so many issues just with CFS stations trying to get upgraded so they can fit in the new style trucks which are bigger and better than what the CFS has had in the past. We see the issue at Stirling where the government will not give the appropriate funding for a brigade that is right in the Hills, right in the red zone as far as bushfire protection goes, and they cannot get the appropriate funding to get this facility upgraded to the appropriate level. The government will come up with all sorts of excuses that they cannot provide this funding.

We saw with the recent incident at Wingfield that Stirling was called in to back up a metropolitan fire service brigade and run down to the city to be parked there in place of the metropolitan service that had rushed down to fight this other major fire. I commend the Metropolitan Fire Service for what it does, but these are paid people and the CFS are volunteers who take up their own time. I commend their bosses for giving them the time. It is a cost to the community, but the community, business and employers understand the community obligation and that it is for the greater good.

On this side of the house we want to see the appropriate level of funding go to the Country Fire Service so it can have the right equipment: the trucks, the tankers and the protective clothing (the helmets and the gloves) to make sure it can carry out this vital work. If the government had to pay for the hours that these volunteers in the CFS and the SES (State Emergency Service) put in there is no way it would be budgeted for—no way.

I know about the great work of the SES and the CFS on roads in the community. Recently they were involved in a bad accident right on the end of the Swanport Bridge at Murray Bridge. A car went under a truck and the truck went over the side and landed on a big granite rock, so that would have been one hell of a ride for the truck driver. Luckily, he got out; sadly, the car driver was killed instantly. Major work was required and the road was closed for a significant time.

In fact, after that incident they kept the road open overnight but the next day (when they had to pick the truck up and place it back on the road) they closed the freeway, so B-doubles were trying to shuttle through the old bridge in Murray Bridge and because B-doubles cannot go across the old bridge they have to be unhooked, towed through the town, go back and get the second trailer and be rehooked up. I was at a community function there and it was quite an interesting scenario to watch what these guys had to do.

I would like to acknowledge that the work of the CFS and the SES is vital for the state and for communities. It gives the volunteers involved a great sense of ownership and a great sense that they are doing something for their communities. They need to be recognised and acknowledged for what they do and they need to be supplied with appropriate equipment such as appropriate trucks. Moore Engineering at Murray Bridge makes very good trucks which, sadly, a lot of the time get overlooked for second-rate trucks built interstate, and I do not say that lightly.

The Hon. R.B. Such: It's shameful.

Mr PEDERICK: Absolutely. They get built interstate and then they come over here and they have to be repaired—basically completely rebuilt. On the West Coast a couple of years ago the new Meningie truck had to go into Moore Engineering and virtually be completely rebuilt. It is just atrocious, because we have a government which only looks at the B-grade option when they could have a better option—and, yes, it may cost a little more—but you always know you will get a good unit out of Moore Engineering. They are doing work out of Western Australia: Western Australian mine vehicles and emergency vehicles get ordered through Moore Engineering. The government should take more notice of local contractors who can supply world-class emergency vehicles.

I commend the motion by the member for Schubert; it is a great motion. I acknowledge his support for the CFS and the SES, and I hope the motion makes speedy passage through the house.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:08): It gives me great pleasure to support the member for Schubert's motion. It is great that so many on this side of the house are keen to talk about the CFS in particular, and also the SES. This motion is a valuable contribution to that debate.

It is important to understand, in the city, that CFS volunteers and brigades are completely vital for the country communities that they serve. Even in the city itself we are very grateful for the services provided by our CFS volunteers, particularly in the periurban areas. In the seat of Morialta, which is a typical periurban seat, I have five CFS brigades within the electorate: Athelstone, Montacute, Basket Range, Cherryville and Norton Summit/Ashton. There are some terrific brigades. A couple of them are well and truly over-subscription and have a waiting list of people who are keen to get in, which is a problem not faced by some others.

Athelstone, in particular, is a first division response unit for emergencies across the state, and it has some of the most highly trained volunteers you are ever going to meet across the world—people who respond to disaster situations. Many of them have been interstate and overseas in disaster situations. The Athelstone CFS recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. I commend any member who is interested in these things to go out to have a look at some of the historical equipment, which is tremendously entertaining to look at compared with the very modern stuff it has there now. Not all of our CFS brigades are so lucky as to have that modern equipment that Athelstone has due to its very specific purpose.

The Montacute CFS is a tremendous brigade. I note that before the last election there was some publicity material for the Labor Party suggesting that the sods had been turned for its new station and everything was on its way. I regret to inform the house that that is far from the case even now. Two years after the election, and three years after we were told the new station was just about built, we have almost got through all of the bureaucracy and the community consultation phase and everything else to the point where a new location had been identified.

Prior to the last election, we had a location. They had bulldozers on site and everything was ready to move, and then head office told the local brigade that was not going to work, and that was very disappointing. Nothing was moving for ages. I held a meeting up at the site with the local CFS, and Brigade Captain Rob Possingham, Ian Sparnon, Glen Trebilcock, Don Winter, and a number of others were there. There were people from the council, people from SAFECOM and people from the brigade group and district and head office.

Eventually, it was decided that, as head office did not want it there, they suggested a location much closer to town, which was not going to work. They ended up building the station right next to where it currently exists. We will get there eventually, but it is very disappointing for that community that it has taken this long. That group is working so hard. I commend those who I have named and the others in the brigade and also people such as Rob Taylor and Chris Martin at CFS, further up the line, who have been working hard to make that work over the last couple of years.

I just want to comment about the Norton Summit-Ashton Brigade. I congratulate Terry Beeston from that brigade, who won a Fire Service Medal earlier this year. It is a terrific group as well and another one that is over-subscribed. It is full of young people interested in helping out in our community, and one of those works for me—Scott Kennedy.

I particularly want to bring something to the attention of the house and those metropolitan members who would be very familiar with their local MFS staff. Everybody here would remember—it was about three weeks—when that factory in Wingfield was on fire. There was extraordinary TV footage. We know that many MFS and SES staff were helping out there. CFS was helping out, too, because, although it was not a country fire, the CFS volunteers were the ones who were called in from their job, and my staff member was among them. Our office was at half mast that day because volunteers like Scott from the Norton Summit CFS were filling in in those MFS stations. I think that Norton Summit went to Beulah Park that day.

Of course, that work goes on. They do tremendous work on those Adelaide Hills roads, which are quite dangerous. They are often helping in situations where people have had a car accident. The creeks on the road up to Norton Summit are often full of motorcycles or cars, and it is the CFS volunteers who are the ones who have to go and help people out in those situations.

It is important that we discuss the issue to do with the adequate funding provided to the CFS because increasingly it seems that, if there are ever new funds made available for the CFS, it is always at head office—it is always to the programs and never to the local brigades. The particular issue that concerns me at the moment is the indication we have had that the government wants to cut back bulk water carriers to one per group. Most of the CFS brigades in Morialta are in the East Torrens group. If there is only going to be one bulk water carrier in the East Torrens group, as opposed to the four there are at the moment—in Athelstone, Summertown, Norton Summit, Ashton and Carey Gully—then that is going to provide a serious impediment to the ability of those brigades to service those Hills communities.

The terrain in the Adelaide Hills, the high fuel load and the lack of reticulated water are the reasons we need to have four bulk water carriers in those four units. The bulk water carriers we have are getting older. We cannot have four to be replaced by one; we need four to be replaced by four. We need the best possible units because I can promise you that those four bulk water carriers are used, and when we have serious incidents in the Hills, those four will be used.

It strikes me that their complete understanding of local knowledge is the reason we value these local brigades, and they should have an input into policy and where funds are directed. It is important that we retain the current number of bulk water carriers. I would also encourage members from the city to have a chat to the CFS and see if they can get invited to one of their early December fire track inspections.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: From the city?

Mr GARDNER: From the city.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr GARDNER: From the fully urban areas, as opposed to peri-urban old me. I grew up in the foothills and we constantly faced the threat of fire danger coming down from Morialta park. I grew up a kilometre from the edge of the Morialta Conservation Park and have moved 500 metres closer over 33 years.

The fire track inspections around Black Hill and the Mount Lofty Ranges make a terrific day, and I really would encourage members to go along on one of them. It is quite fun for a start: you get to go out in a four-wheel drive with a convoy of CFS crews and drive down hills that you really do not think those four-wheel drives are always going to make, but they manage to because these guys are highly-trained drivers, and it is good to see.

You also get to understand the importance of the education campaigns that need to be run in the near Hills areas. There is a patch where the fire track goes to the edge of Skye and Burnside and where, all of a sudden, you go from these scrublands, which are high fire risk, and into suburban Adelaide. It is an unusual edge to the city that is a natural consequence of our geography. It is important that people are educated that they need to clear their gutters and that they are aware of how fires behave because disasters happen when people are not fully prepared. So, I commend the work that the CFS is doing.

I note that on 24 March a briefing was held at the Salisbury CFS to discuss the future of the CFS, that is, whether there were going to be mergers with the SES, whether there was going to be a model where some paid staff would be provided to busy brigades rather than their response areas being taken over by the MFS. It is called the 'integrated model'. The model was discussed by representatives from the CFA in Victoria, the FESA in WA and the previous New South Wales minister. I note that the shadow minister, Duncan McFetridge (member for Morphett), and Geoff Brock (member for Frome) were there.

I want to make sure that the house understands the need for those local volunteers to be valued and to have their views put forward as a primary consideration in this process, because many of them have been doing it for decades. Their service is a valuable and integral part of the community. Quite frankly, I do not know where we would be without them. If we reduce the value of those brigades, it concerns me what that will do to the community. In relation to anything, I always think that you get your best bang for your buck from volunteers.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Sibbons.

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