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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Parliamentary Committee on Occupational Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation: Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation (SACFS Firefighters) Amendment Bill

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (12:36): I move:

That the 19th report of the committee, entitled Report into the Referral of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation (SACFS Firefighters) Amendment Bill, be noted.

This report is in response to the referral from the house on 16 October 2014. When the question was put that the bill be read a second time, the member for Newland moved an amendment to the question as follows:

That all words after 'be' be left out and the words 'withdrawn and referred to the Parliamentary Committee on Occupational Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation for its report and recommendation' be inserted in lieu thereof.

Our committee obviously took this referral very seriously, hence my report today on behalf of the committee. The Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation (SACFS Firefighters) Amendment Bill was introduced by the Hon. Tammy Franks on 7 May 2014 to provide volunteer firefighters with the same presumptive protection for 12 specified cancers as are already available to career firefighters without the need for them to prove which carcinogen, toxin or hazard of the fire scene they had been exposed to during their volunteer firefighting career.

A CFS volunteer firefighter's cancer is taken to have been caused because of their lifelong commitment to firefighting and the relation to the work itself. I should mention that the member for Morphett also had a very similar bill that he was pursuing on this issue, and I commend him for his work in this area as well. Our committee worked diligently to undertake its responsibilities in this matter in order to bring back a thorough and timely report.

Firefighters are usually the first responders in the event of a fire or other emergency situations and, while many of us run away from danger, these brave, highly-respected men and women run towards it. The most recent bushfire at Sampson Flat, which was one of the worst in the state's history, and its devastating effects are still being felt by many in the local community, including volunteer firefighters.

It is a sad reality that while protecting the community from fire, chemical spills and other emergencies, firefighters put their own lives and safety at risk. We hear news and reports about injuries and fatalities arising from the work performed by firefighters, but we do not hear a lot about the long-term health risks such as cancer.

Following a Senate inquiry in 2011, the commonwealth government introduced legislation to provide presumptive protection for career firefighters who contracted any one of the 12 specified cancers. While career firefighters in the commonwealth jurisdiction no longer have to prove that a specified cancer arose from their employment, the same protection was not provided for volunteer firefighters.

The Senate inquiry found that, while there was sufficient evidence to provide presumptive protection for career firefighters, there was insufficient evidence to provide the same protection for volunteer firefighters. This was influential in the decision by the Deputy Premier when he introduced the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation (SAMFS Firefighters) Amendment Bill 2013 into parliament in June 2013 to provide presumptive protection for South Australian career firefighters only.

It is now internationally recognised that both volunteer and career firefighters are exposed to the same cancer risks. International research has demonstrated very clear links between the work that firefighters perform and a certain specified cancer. When I say, Deputy Speaker, that the risks are the same, there is also some evidence, certainly from the career firefighters and the volunteer firefighters that I know, that they do also attend different sorts of fires in some instances, but I do not think that takes away from the point that there is a risk there.

Firefighters are at greater risk than the rest of the community in contracting 12 specific cancers, including brain cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer and leukaemia, just to name a few. Many countries, including Canada, provide the same presumptive protection for volunteer firefighters as for career firefighters. In 2013, Tasmania became the first Australian state to enact presumptive legislation for the benefit of its 300 career firefighters and 5,000 volunteers. Western Australia, which has had presumptive protection in place for career firefighters since 2013, extended protection to volunteer firefighters in 2014. But some other states continue to debate this issue.

In recognition of the increasing awareness of cancer risks to both career and volunteer firefighters, last year the Deputy Premier, together with the Minister for Emergency Services, announced that SACFS active volunteer firefighters will be provided with automatic compensation if they are diagnosed with one of the 12 specified cancers. Therefore, the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation (SACFS) Amendment Bill has been superseded since this announcement, which resulted in changes to section 31 of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1986 and schedule 3 of the Return to Work Act 2014.

While inquiring into this matter, the committee found that the Australian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council, which represents both career and volunteer firefighter agencies in Australia and New Zealand, had commissioned Monash University to undertake a health study on Australian firefighters. The research was led by an occupational hygienist, Associate Professor Deborah Glass, who released the final report in December 2014. The research found that firefighters are a healthier cohort than the general population, but their length of service as firefighters can increase their risk of contracting several types of cancer. However, the risk estimates reported are uncertain and should be interpreted cautiously. Professor Glass recommended a follow-up in five years.

I do wish to extend my sincere thanks to the members of their committee. Many of us found this inquiry very important, and we, as I said, tried to be timely in our response. I would also like to acknowledge the commitment that everyone on the committee had to this task.

The newish member for Schubert replaced the former member for Schubert on our committee—an excellent representative. The member for Reynell, who did a sterling job, was replaced by the probably even newer member for Fisher, due to the member for Reynell becoming a parliamentary secretary. We were very pleased for the member for Reynell in attaining that position, but we were sad to lose her from the committee. However, we welcome the member for Fisher. The other members are the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars, the Hon. John Dawkins and the Hon. John Darley. I thank them all for their terrific work and I also thank our committee's Executive Officer, Ms Sue Sedivy. I commend the report to the house.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (12:45): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I have been working on the speed at which I can rise to my feet. It seems to be a skill in this place, from time to time—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Only if you want to be noticed.

Mr KNOLL: —especially in trying to observe the traditions of this house and pay proper respect to the Chair.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

Mr KNOLL: I rise to speak to this report. This has been quite an interesting process. The private member's bill that the member for Morphett brought to this place was referred to the committee by the member for Newland. We also had a bill introduced by the Hon. Tammy Franks in the other place to look at and, obviously, the two pieces of legislation are quite similar. In the meantime, the return-to-work bills were put through parliament and, lo and behold, a provision for presumptive cancer compensation for volunteer firefighters was inserted. That is how the report came about.

If I can take a step back before that, this has obviously been an issue in the public area for a number of years. It was certainly a key issue at the 2014 election and it was a huge issue for my electorate. I have a very strong CFS presence in my electorate. We are part of region 2 and we have brigades in my now hometown of Angaston, Nuriootpa, Freeling, Kalbeeba, Williamstown, Mannum (where there is quite a large brigade; I was talking to the brigade captain there the other day) and Kersbrook. The Kersbrook CFS brigade held a very successful fundraiser a couple of weeks ago. There would have had to have been about 1,500 people there bidding on 400 live auction items and about 200 silent auction items that the community had gathered as a separate incorporated association, which is helping to raise funds for the Kersbrook CFS.

This issue is one of equity and common sense and, certainly, the committee discussed it in that light. It is one of these frustrating things in politics, where we take opposing sides and dig in almost out of spite rather than anything else. It is an issue we fought very strongly in favour of at the 2014 election and one that the government would not canvass. It has built up a lot of angst and it broke down a lot of goodwill that exists within our, I think, about 10,000 or 11,000 CFS volunteers across the state. For them, it was probably more about the fact that they were not being recognised for their volunteer efforts rather than the compensation itself.

I have an MFS brigade in Tanunda with firefighters who are on call, as opposed to having a standing firefighting unit, and when I talk to my CFS volunteers, they are at pains to remind me that they are almost always the first responders. They are the ones who get there quickest. They are the ones who deal with a broader range of issues, and they do it all for the love of it. They do feel they have been let down by the government.

Certainly, the government saw sense in the end and quietly put something in the return-to-work bills which was great, and we must commend the government, but why it took years for them to come to that decision remains a mystery to me, because the scars are still there, especially as we roll on now to the emergency services sector reform where, again, we see changes to the CFS. There is a lot of angst in the community about those changes. My electorate is covered by region 2 with the exception of Mannum and those surrounding brigades, which are part of a separate region, and the brigades in region 2 are extremely anxious about these reforms. There is a lot of entrenched negativity about the reforms, and I wonder how much of that is because there now appears to be a series of points where the government is seen to be attacking the Country Fire Service. They would not stand up for a long time on cancer compensation. Now there are a lot of question marks about these reforms and about to what extent this is an MFS takeover, and people are very keen to keep the independence of the CFS.

Now we see reported in the paper over the weekend that the minister is bringing a defamation action. Certainly, the way I read the newspaper article was that they are looking not only to target the newspapers but the CFS volunteers who dared speak up. I find it very difficult to understand that a government that seeks to reform a sector, and engender goodwill in a sector, has gone about this in, I think, the worst possible way. Agreeing to cancer compensation up-front would have taken away what was a very negative election issue for them, being up-front and honest about what the emergency sector reform really is.

I still do not understand what it really is going to do. I have read everything that I can about it. I have read the report that was handed down last year. I have certainly been through the facts and figures, the fact sheet that the minister put out a couple of months ago that was reported in all the local press. He did definitely get a fair hearing in my electorate on it. Now we have this issue where a defamation action is being brought against a newspaper and implies that CFS volunteers may or may not become part of the action somewhere down the track.

It speaks of a government that really is going about reform the wrong way, especially when we look at the fact that the government cannot afford to replace these CFS volunteers. It cannot afford to replace these CFS volunteers. It speaks volumes and, I think, talks about a greater disconnect between rural South Australia and this Labor government.

Can I say of my committee members that it was a fantastic robust discussion where we got down to the nitty-gritty of what the Monash University research did or did not say and what links that research did or did not make. It was all done in the right spirit, and at least around that table there is a level of bipartisanship on this issue that I think was quite warming.

To close, what I see happens in our committee work is that all of us come from our entrenched positions and discuss common purpose and common ground, and we can come to sensible decisions. I wish beyond wishing that there were more opportunities for us to do that and that indeed, if we are going to tackle change and reform in our communities instead of retreating into entrenched corners and perspectives, we come together to find a better way to improve this beautiful state in which we live.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:52): I rise to speak to the 19th report of the Parliamentary Committee on Occupational Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation, entitled Report into the Referral of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation (SACFS Firefighters) Amendment Bill. I certainly concur with everything that the member for Schubert has stated. It does beggar belief that volunteers are being used as political pawns in a process by the government as to whether or not they would get compensation. This debate has been going on for the last couple of years. It all started from the Metropolitan Fire Service volunteers being able to get compensation for 12 particular cancers in regard to firefighting efforts.

In many fires across the state, MFS and CFS fight side by side. As the member for Schubert indicated, he has MFS brigades in his district. So have I in my district in Murray Bridge, and in many situations they are side by side. At a recent sawmill fire, I think it was only last week, they were side by side putting out that fire. It just seemed to be a debate we did not need to have, where basically the government was devaluing the close on 13,000 CFS volunteers—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, close on 13,000; it is heading that way—for the work they do across the state. I certainly state my interest as a CFS volunteer for my local brigade at Coomandook.

As I said, it is something that should never have happened because of those man hours our CFS men and women put in, whether they are on the front line or manning the control centres, in regard to the work they do for this state in saving people's homes—and I have seen many effects of it recently in my electorate. Rockleigh has had four recent fires in the last few years, and they were fortunate that in the last huge blaze that happened only one house was lost. One house is too many, but it was amazing to note, when I toured the area afterwards, that that fire had burnt up to so many homes but that the CFS was in place to save those homes.

The CFS volunteers certainly do deserve the same level of compensation, and I note that they have that now. But they have been put on the merry-go-round by this government again with the emergency services levy debate. I know that in the member for Flinders' area his people are still having discussions, and some have made it very clear that some of their brigades will not fight fires on government land; certainly they will if there are lives at risk.

When the debate gets down to that level, it shows how much the real people of this state are hurting under different government proposals and announcements. I think that ministers need to get out into the real world and talk to these people more. In saying that, we have heard from the Minister for Emergency Services that he has consulted heavily on his emergency services reform, but we note that that is getting peeled back layer by layer as time goes on. He made an announcement the other day that that will be peeled back further.

I wonder why all the volunteer sectors, and the Metropolitan Fire Service sector for that matter, are being put through these reforms. I think that it is more about the minister saving his skin and saying to the Premier, 'Well, this is why I am a minister: I've created this reform.' We have seen through all the recent fires and even going further back, through SAFECOM, and if we look at Sampson Flat, a whole range of fires that have happened—down at Tantanoola, for instance—the latest two big ones, all of the sectors work together well. They get on with the job and they do the job. To see a minister meddling in something that I do not believe should be meddled with I think is just wrong.

In closing, I reiterate what the member for Schubert mentioned about potential legal action against The Advertiser by the Minister for Emergency Services and, in particular, potentially CFS volunteers who the minister was hoping The Advertiser would name. Well, certainly The Advertiser will not name them. I think it is an absolute disgrace that a minister wants to go down that path.

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (12:58): I thank members for their contribution to this longstanding issue. The member for Schubert's view that this is a matter of equity is my view as well. I think that most of the members in this house are particularly pleased that volunteer CFS people will be recognised, sadly, in a very difficult area of presumptive cancer. In saying that, I commend the report to the house.

Motion carried.

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