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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-02-20 Daily Xml
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ASH WEDNESDAY BUSHFIRES ANNIVERSARY

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:04): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. Could the minister inform the house about the recent anniversary commemorations of the Ash Wednesday bushfires and how emergency services are working towards improving emergency alerts within the community?

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN (Napier—Minister for Finance, Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (15:04): I thank the member for Florey for her question. On Saturday, the Country Fire Service Mount Lofty brigade held a commemoration service at Mount Lofty Summit which I attended, as did the members for Heysen, Flinders and Morphett. I believe the member for Morphett is actually a volunteer.

The service was held to mark 30 years since the devastating Ash Wednesday bushfires and to remember those firefighters who have sacrificed their lives in the service of others, and 16 February has been retained symbolically as the anniversary of the fires because on that day in 1983 an estimated 130,000 volunteer firefighters were called to duty across all of south-eastern Australia. This is more volunteers working together at the same time for the same disaster than ever before or ever since.

The anniversary of the terrible Ash Wednesday tragedy is an appropriate time for the government to update members about what is being done to minimise the risk of fatalities in the event of another catastrophic fire. Members will be aware that a hazard alert regime has been developed as part of the national system. Known in South Australia as the Alert SA Solution, it provides a centralised website with warning information for all emergency services. It also provides an automated answering service that caters for mass inbound public telephone calls by providing recorded information about emergency incidents or recovery efforts.

The South Australian government has provided a total of $10.1 million to develop and operate Alert SA between 2009-10 and 2012-13. I think this would be of interest to all members: a recent enhancement to the system, known as the Location-based Solution, has enabled warning messages to be sent to thousands of at-risk individuals using SMS messages to mobile telephones in affected areas, in addition to voice recordings to fixed telephone lines and SMS to mobile phones via their billing addresses.

South Australia was the first state to employ the new location-based component of the emergency alert system, which has been used to provide highly targeted, relevant warnings to more than 36,000 individuals since its introduction in November 2012. There is an ongoing indexed commitment of more than $2.5 million per year to ensure the continued operation of the system.

The interesting thing is that this service was provided by Telstra alone; they were the only ones who could actually send SMS messages to individuals in fire-affected areas rather than to the address of the telephone owner. From 31 October 2013, the other providers (Vodafone and Optus), will be able to provide this service so that all owners of mobile phones, irrespective of where they are in the state, but particularly those who are in fire areas, will receive an SMS message.

That is a great development from where we currently are with Vodafone and Optus subscribers, who would only receive a message to their billing address. For all members, but particularly for regional members, I think it is very reassuring that—

The SPEAKER: Alas, the member's time has expired.

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