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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-05-07 Daily Xml
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Bills

Fire and Emergency Services (Volunteer Charters) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 26 March 2015.)

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (10:33): I rise today to speak about the Fire and Emergency Services (Volunteer Charters) Amendment Bill 2015. At the outset, I would like to thank the member for Davenport for giving me the opportunity to speak first on this bill and once again welcome him to this house and the strong responsibilities that come with being a member of the team in this house. I thank him for allowing me, at very short notice, to go first on this bill.

This is not a new piece of legislation to this place. In 2012, the member for Morphett brought this bill to the parliament. The reason that he brought this bill to the parliament was that the South Australian CFS Volunteers Association was extremely unhappy at the government's lack of consultation on this and other issues—we are talking about the community safety directorate—and stated that the government had breached the South Australian CFS volunteer charter that had originally been signed in 2008. So it seems that today over the course of my speech there may be a sense of deja vu.

The government at that stage had committed itself to consultation on all matters that might reasonably be expected to affect the CFS volunteers and to consider their views when adopting new practices and policies and reviewing current practices and policies.

The Labor government signed the volunteer charter in 2008, but since that time has completely disregarded it and that is why it was important in 2012, and why it is important today, that we bring this to the house so that we incorporate it into the emergency services bill. Proposed section 58A includes the following provisions:

(2) (b) requires that the Government of South Australia, the Commission and SACFS recognise, value, respect and promote the contribution of volunteer officers and members to the well-being and safety of the community; and

(c) requires that the Government of South Australia, the Commission and SACFS commit to consulting with the Country Fire Service Volunteers Association on behalf of volunteer officers and members on any matter that might reasonably be expected to affect them...

(4) SACFS has a responsibility to develop policy and organisational arrangements that encourage, maintain and strengthen the capacity of volunteer officers and members to provide SACFS services.

What this bill seeks to do, and what the charter sought to do in the first place, was for me something where we have 13,500 volunteers across the state who say, 'Look, we want to help. We value our communities. We want to be part of our communities. Fire is through the fire season—and as we saw the other day, not through the fire season—a constant threat to the future of our communities and we want to help. We do not want to get paid.' In fact, it is one of the policies of the CFS volunteers that they do not want to be paid. They want to be volunteers and they want to maintain that volunteer spirit.

All these 13,500 people—which I might remind the government they cannot afford to replace—are asking for is a seat at the table. All they are asking is, 'Look, please do not muck us around. Help us with equipment. Help us with an organisational structure that allows us to do our job. We are the ones on the ground who have the practical knowledge and experience of how to fight fires, so please do not muck us around.'

In 2008, the government signed a charter committing the government to not muck the service volunteers around, but unfortunately in 2012 this bill was introduced because the volunteers were not being consulted properly and, lo and behold, here we are in 2015 and we have exactly the same situation. In fact, this amendment the member for Morphett brings today is probably more important today than it was back in 2012, and why is it more important? It is because the current reform process that the member for Light and the Minister for Emergency Services is undertaking once again fails to consult those who it will affect.

We had a rally on the steps of Parliament House which the minister was invited to, but he did not come. Can I say that many of those SES and CFS volunteers were from my electorate. Brigades from Nuriootpa and Lyndoch were there, and I think I saw a few people from Angaston. There were many region 2 groups and trucks and they were from my electorate. They were white hot with outrage. There is nothing in it for them. There is nothing in it except for the satisfaction of looking after their communities and the minister does not even have the stomach to come out and face these volunteers on what are some fairly legitimate grounds.

The CFS volunteers used that rally as an opportunity to make a point to the minister and send a message to the minister, but unfortunately the minister did not listen. So what various groups have done is they have had to take what I think are fairly unprecedented steps to get their message across. The Public Service Association here in South Australia passed a motion of no confidence in the emergency services minister. The Public Service Association has members from SAFECOM, the SES, the CFS and the MFS and they moved a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Emergency Services for failing to appropriately progress the reform of the sector in an open and transparent way.

The motion referred specifically to the unilateral decision by the minister to change the previously proposed model without further conversation. Members also expressed strong concerns that the current path being undertaken by the minister has the potential to impact the safety of the people of South Australia and will not meet the objectives of the reform. The motion also continued to call for an immediate return to meaningful consultation and dialogue.

The minister said in a statement that he was pleased that the PSA support in principle an efficient and effective emergency services sector, which is one of the key aims of the reform. I find that that statement from the minister really misses the entire point. Nobody along this discussion, along this reform process, has said anything other than there needs to be reform. Everybody agrees that there needs to be reform, but it is the way the minister has gone about it that has really put people off guard.

I made a speech previously in this place where I talked about the fact that the volunteers have reasonable cause to be upset with this minister and this government when it comes to cancer compensation for CFS volunteers, when it comes to emergency services levy increases, and when it comes to some of the incidents that surrounded the Sampson Flat bushfire and the actions of the minister to sue The Advertiser and, by doing so, try to uncover those volunteers who decided to speak out against what they saw was an injustice and a waste of resources in the midst of a real crisis.

But further than that, the PSA moved a motion of no confidence, and that came off the back of the Country Fire Service Volunteers Association branch unanimously passing a motion of no confidence in the minister at a meeting. The motion was moved on the basis that the minister 'continues to progress a flawed sector reform process, lacking in clarity, transparency and with no definable outcomes'. It goes on to say that 'the Minister has demonstrated a lack of respect for volunteers and community safety and has the potential to impact on the safety of SA communities'. The CFS Volunteers Association at that time called for, and continues to call for, an immediate halt to the sector reform process until such time as an open and transparent analysis of the current system is undertaken and efficiencies and future direction clearly identified.

The motions passed by the CFSVA and also the PSA are very similar in nature. I find it quite interesting that, in a process where every part of the sector is committed to reform, where every part of the sector is committing to consult in an open and transparent way and find ways to do things better and find ways to do things more efficiently, a minister who started out with a group of people with goodwill could end up in a situation where all of that goodwill is gone and all of that goodwill is broken.

I echo the calls of the member for Morphett at the time of these no-confidence motions. I believe that the only way that we are going to get this reform process back on track is for there to be a different minister in charge. I think that the relationship between the minister and the associations involved with the emergency services has broken down to such an extent that only by a new minister being installed and a process brought back to the very beginning are we going get to an outcome where everybody is on board and everybody is willing to work together towards a better emergency services sector, and we can actually move forward and get some resolution on these issues.

Indeed, it was exposed yesterday. It was exposed yesterday by questioning from the member for Morphett to the emergency services minister on specific areas within the proposed reforms to do with employment contracts and enterprise bargaining contracts. It shows that the minister is not across his brief. The minister was not able to answer the questions. The minister is wildly out of his depth, and what that means is that we have a situation where we need to get on and start fixing a job, but we are not going to be able to. Until we see a change of minister, I do not see that changing.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (10:43): I am pleased to make some comments in support of the legislation that the member for Morphett has brought to the house in relation to the fire and emergency services volunteer charter. If there was ever a need for this, it is now. We all know the crucially valuable role that every CFS volunteer plays in this state, so if there was ever a need for this formal recognition in the act, it is now, and I will expand on the reasons for that.

No doubt, the member for Morphett highlighted this in his contribution. He has been working away on this issue very well, and the member for Schubert also made a strong contribution in relation to this. This is focused absolutely at the appalling and abysmal manner in which the minister has been dealing with the emergency services sector, particularly the volunteer sector in the CFS and the SES. As the member for Schubert pointed out, the PSA moved and successfully voted a no-confidence motion in the minister, as has the SES. If there is ever an indication of the lack of confidence that the sector has in the minister, there it is.

I do not think the minister understands what he is doing in relation to this. Again, the member for Schubert spoke about this: the minister is destroying any goodwill that volunteers in the CFS and SES have towards this government and the role that they play in the community. We witnessed their work during the Sampson Flat fires in January. There were some fires in the Hills on Monday afternoon; one was out the back of our property out towards Gorge Road. Quite a number of CFS units were patrolling the neighbouring paddocks to put this fire out, around in the gully that heads down to Gorge Road in Castambul from the back of our property.

Everybody in this place, particularly those who have rural electorates, understands the key role that CFS volunteers play in our community. They keep our communities safe and secure. They protect people's property and they save human life. I do not know what greater benefit a volunteer (or anybody in the community, whether paid or unpaid) has in society than to save a life. That is why we so greatly value the skills of our medical profession, and that is why they are paid at the level they are paid for the skill and expertise they bring to their profession.

I do not mind sharing this with the house: my father has just been in hospital for quite a period of time, where he was receiving treatment from medical specialists. I think that if the care was not as good as it was, we might be faced with a different situation; we may have been having a condolence motion in the house. I think the care and the skill level of the medical profession actually kept him alive, and he is now recovering. Anyway, that is a digression, I know, but that is just an illustration of the value that we place on human life and the medical profession, and as a comparison, the value that we place on our CFS, because they do save lives and protect property.

The way the minister has treated the CFS and SES in the supposed restructure has been appalling. It is actually a lesson in how not to go about reform and restructure. As I said, if there has ever been a need for legislative requirement, this is it. The bill talks about parliamentary recognition of the SA CFS Volunteer Charter and the SA SES Volunteer Charter, and there are a number of clauses in the bill which outline that.

We cannot get away from the fact that there are other influences affecting the reason for this restructure. The member for Morphett has spoken about this before: it is the influence of the UFU in this whole business. I am aware, and others are aware, that the UFU are keen on this restructure. They are keen on this restructure because—and I may be wrong, but this is my take—it gives them the opportunity to increase their membership or it starts the process to work along a line that enables them to increase their membership.

We know that that is what some of the union bosses are very keen on. They are keen on increasing their membership because it means more money in the union coffers for them to do what they want to do with the union funds. And we have seen what they use the union funds for: they use them for election campaigns for ALP candidates. We do not really have to be geniuses to join the dots in what the motivation could be in relation to this.

I also want to touch on the minister's involvement in relation to some issues concerning the Mount Barker CFS Brigade. He is very sensitive about this matter. The member for Morphett raises issues from time to time concerning the Mount Barker brigade and I have had discussions with the minister about what the brigade is trying to achieve in meeting the demands and the needs of the local community. There is significant expansion of the residential area in and around Mount Barker, and the brigade is concerned that it has not had the resources and the training to deal with incidents.

That is the level of representation I have made, but the minister tries to legitimise his responses to the issues that the member for Morphett raises by saying to the media, 'Well, the member for Kavel and the member for Heysen have made representation.' Somehow, he is trying to link in my conversations with him about meeting the needs of the brigade with MFS trucks—I have not mentioned anything to him about MFS trucks or anything like that. That is something that he and, supposedly, SAFECOM and the bureaucratic structure have worked through. Until he advised me of it, and until I had spoken to the brigade about it, I have not made any representation about MFS trucks.

With that contribution, I am certainly pleased to support the bill that the member for Morphett has brought to the house.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (10:53): I rise to support the member for Morphett wholeheartedly in the Fire and Emergency Services (Volunteer Charters) Amendment Bill and I refer members of this house, and others who might be interested, to a contribution I made on Thursday 2 May 2013. Many of the issues that we are dealing with are the same, but there are many more issues we are dealing with now that were not on the table back at that point in time.

For the benefit of the house and others who may not be fully aware, the charter that the member for Morphett refers to was originally signed in 2008. The charter is signed by the Premier, the Minister for Emergency Services, the Minister for Volunteers, the commissioner of fire and emergencies, the SACFS Chief Officer and the President of the CFS Volunteers Association. That agreement was actually required to be reviewed by all parties at the end of four years from the date of commencement, so that would then have been in 2012.

The government committed itself to consultation on 'all matters that might reasonably be expected to affect [the CFS], and [consider] their views when adopting or approving new practices and policies or reviewing current practices or policies'. That just has not happened. The review did not happen, as far as I am aware, unless it was a secret review. It did not happen. I can give you my very strong opinion that the consultation with the CFS on all issues which might reasonably be expected to affect them certainly did not happen either.

So, what the member for Morphett is trying to do is actually formalise that relationship in legislation, because we already have an agreement signed by the Premier and two ministers, yet it has not been kept. What the member for Morphett wants to do is say, 'Clearly a signed document has not been respected and abided by, so let's put it into legislation.' That is what he is trying to do, and let me say clearly: the member for Morphett is an absolutely outstanding ambassador and supporter of the CFS and emergency services more broadly. He is a life member of the Country Fire Service. His bona fides as a participant and as a doer are unquestionable, as are his bona fides as a representative and a leader of their cause, but not just the CFS but of emergency services now more broadly.

I said before that, when the member for Morphett brought forward this bill back in May last year, it was incredibly important, and it still is, but there is actually new information. It is even more important now, because since then we have seen the absolute debacle by this government of its attempt to reform, as it sees necessary, the emergency services sector. Nobody has been more penalised by that attempted reform than the CFS. There are other members of the emergency services sector who are not happy with it either, like ambulance and SES for example, but the CFS has really borne the brunt of it.

As the member for Kavel mentioned before and the member for Schubert before him, we have seen protest after protest from completely dissatisfied CFS members. While other professionals involved in the emergency services sector have not participated in those protests, I can assure you that an overwhelming number of them are also dissatisfied with the way the process has occurred.

A startling example of that was the resignation of the MFS Chief Officer, Grant Lupton. Presumably, under the government's plan, the MFS would have been the agency to benefit most out of all of the emergency services sector agencies, and even Grant Lupton, their chief officer, was so completely dissatisfied with the way the government was handling the whole process that he packed up and left. Unfortunately, we have lost him to a very important, highly responsible and no doubt (hopefully for him) high-paying job overseas. South Australia has lost his expertise. So, you can only imagine how incredibly frustrated the people who lead the other emergency services agencies are.

This situation has got so far as to a public show of lack of support by the emergency services sector for the current minister. I have met with the current minister in various places talking about these various issues. I have been very forthright with him about my views and, to his credit, he has been forthright with me about his views. We can agree to disagree and, do you know what, Deputy Speaker? The reality is that he is the minister and he is in government so he gets to make decisions. We are in opposition so we get to comment on them; we do not get the make decisions, and I respect that.

The other people who are commenting on it are all from the other emergency services sectors, and they are completely dissatisfied with what the government is trying to do. The foundation of their lack of support is based on a lack of consultation, and that brings us right back to what the member for Morphett is trying to achieve through this bill. There is already a charter in place; there is already a signed document between the CFS and three ministers and other important players in this space, but the government has not respected that agreement. The government has not honoured or fulfilled that agreement, so we need something in law.

Is it not a great shame that the member for Morphett has to bring a bill like this to this parliament and, simultaneously, the emergency services workers from around the state are saying very publicly that they have lost confidence in the minister because of—guess what—lack of consultation? There is nobody out there saying that things cannot be improved. There is nobody saying that there is no better way, that there could not be a way of doing some sort of restructure or some sort of reform that would provide a better and more efficient service for the public of South Australia. As the member for Kavel said, this is all about serving the public, giving emergency service support to the public of South Australia.

None of the people involved in this is saying, 'No, we're perfect, don't change us, nothing can be better' because it is not true, and they know it. What they are saying is that the government and the minister have been derelict in their consultation with us about how to seek improvement, and that is the reason the member for Morphett has to bring this bill forward, and that is the reason the member for Morphett is doing this. He did it last year for very good reason—and we supported him on that. He is doing it this year for the same good reason, but not only is the opposition and a few people from the emergency services sector supporting him but they are all now supporting the member for Morphett. They all recognise that the government has not consulted properly.

Let me be very clear: I do not say that the government or the minister has not consulted at all because the minister will tell us, quite accurately, that he has travelled this state far and wide and been to an enormous number of meetings with emergency services representatives, and it is true. But that in itself is not consultation, that in itself is not what constitutes genuine consultation and taking the views of people onboard. The reason people are so dreadfully frustrated across the length and breadth of our state—from metropolitan Adelaide, to Mount Gambier, to Marla, to Port Lincoln—is that, while they have attended those meetings, they do not believe their views have been heard. They do not believe their views have been genuinely taken onboard with regard to the government's intentions.

Let me say again: back when the charter was put in place in 2008, the government committed itself to consultation on all matters that might reasonably be expected to affect the CFS and consider their views when adopting or approving new practices or policies. That is not what has happened. There has been consultation with regard to attending meetings and talking with people, but there has not been consultation with regard to respecting their views and bringing their views into the decision-making process of the government.

So, I wholeheartedly support the emergency services people who have put forward those views, I wholeheartedly support the member for Morphett and, privately, as a CFS member and professionally, as a member for parliament, I endorse this bill.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:03): I indicate my support for the bill put forward by the member for Morphett. I do not need to go through the process of reading it out, as I think everyone is aware of it. As a long-term CFS volunteer, indeed, having been on the roll since around 1968—

Mr Whetstone: Are you that old?

Mr PENGILLY: Yes, I am that old—and having also been a former member of the CFS board and a presiding member, I do have a bit of knowledge on the subject. I am still actively involved in the CFS as a volunteer; indeed, I did my fire duty last Sunday morning. I am seriously shaking my head at what this Weatherill Labor government is doing to emergency services. To me, it is a complete joke and ridiculous. All they are seemingly doing is making more enemies out in the community amongst these people involved, in this case, with the CFS and the SES.

It is a sad indictment on this government that it has been completely done over by the UFU, the firefighters union. What is more interesting, and it has been mentioned here this morning, is that the PSA has come out and said that it has no confidence in the Minister for Emergency Services. For the PSA to do that is something of an achievement—to come out and belt a Labor minister.

The member for Stuart referred to the consultation. Interestingly enough, I went to the first consultation meeting held by the Minister for Emergency Services (the member for Light), which was in Kingscote, and it was a joke, a complete joke. They put on several tables and had everybody there, including all the kingpins from the union, a succession of bureaucrats and heads of services, and it was just a snow job, a complete snow job. It was not consultation.

As the member for Stuart correctly said, the minister says that he has been all around the state. Well, he might indeed have been all around the state preaching but not listening, and that has come out in the last few months, as the CFS volunteers organisation and others have come out heavily critical of the minister. We saw the absolute sham that occurred at the Sampson Flat fire, where the minister had a set-up picture with—

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: The member for Kavel is agreeing. I know that there were members of my brigade who were dragged from the fire scene on that day to go and put on an impromptu set-up for the minister to get his photo taken so that he could pop it on Facebook and Twitter, whatever. I was told within about five minutes because my people rang me to tell me. I said, 'Oh, no, a Labor minister setting himself up for a promotional photo? I find that a bit hard to believe!'

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: Shame, shame, shame! My understanding from what is floating around parliament is that the minister's head is on the chopping block politically and that he has to about the end of the year and then he will be replaced by somebody else. We will wait and see how that plays out within the government.

The member for Morphett, in putting up his bill, is attempting to fix up what is a mess. I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in this government's ability to run a chook raffle let alone to run the SES and the CFS. It is just a disgrace and a disappointment. It is a disappointment to those people who have volunteered in emergency services organisations for so many years. It is greatly disappointing to see those people now shaking their head and saying, 'I really don't want to be involved in it anymore; there's no satisfaction in it. It's just going to be a takeover. In due course, we'll just walk away from it.' I feel that attitude pervading. It has just got too bureaucratic and, if the government has its way, and if the current Minister for Emergency Services has his way, it will become even worse.

As I think once again mentioned by the member for Stuart and possibly others (I did not hear all of the debate), the fact that Mr Grant Lupton walked away from the MFS says it all, I think. These people who are put in a position of authority to run organisations are getting white-anted by an insipid government and an insipid minister. I just wanted to have a few words to say on this matter. It is disappointing for me that we have to do this, but I think that, as long the member for Light is the Minister for Emergency Services, it is going to be in turmoil.

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