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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-11-14 Daily Xml
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State Emergency Service Control Centre

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (15:06): My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. When will the backup generator for the State Emergency Service state control centre be replaced?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health, Minister Assisting the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (15:06): I thank the member for his question. It is an important question, in terms of the generator for the state emergency centre, which is obviously in the Waymouth headquarters, which is the site that has the CFS headquarters, the SES headquarters and also SAFECOM. As the member is alluding to, this was obviously something that was raised in the SES internal report, in terms of their analysis of what happened following the statewide blackout event in September last year.

One of the issues, obviously, in that case was that the generator capacity that the SES had available to it was limited in that time, and that meant that there were only a certain number of workstations that were able to be operated in the headquarters. The control centre stayed operational during that period, but it is obviously not an ideal situation to have a small number of workstations being operated, and that was obviously one of the recommendations of that report.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Similarly, it was also one of the recommendations of the Burns report, which was the look across the whole government response to the blackout scenario, that the government needs to consider new control centre arrangements for our emergency services agencies. The government, since the Burns report, has been working to look at all the different options, in terms of potentially upgrading the existing SES and CFS site, potentially moving to a new site or potentially building a brand-new site purpose designed.

In terms of the specifics of the generator at that site, that is something the SES have looked into as to whether it is worth upgrading that particular facility. I understand, and I am advised by the chief of the SES, that there are a number of difficulties in terms of doing that. One is that the generator is on the top floor of the building, which obviously makes access to that site very difficult.

Obviously, generators come with costs on their own, but also getting access to that area of the building would probably involve quite a construction project to enable it to go into that site and potentially quite a lot of upgrading to the facilities to be able to have a heavier generator on that floor, so that is another one of the issues. There are also a number of significant wiring issues that would need to be looked at in the building itself.

All of those would need to be considered if you went down the path of staying in the building and upgrading the generator. All of those matters and a few more, as I understand, would need to be considered, which is why it is not the advice of the SES to go down that path at this point. They want to focus their attention on the long-term solution in terms of trying to get to either a new site or upgrading the existing site to deal with a whole range of different issues that have been raised through the Burns report and also the internal report that the member alludes to.

That's why, in terms of that generator, it's not as easy as just saying, 'We'll bring in a new generator.' There are a number of significant building issues in terms of that site, which is why it's not an ideal site. Certainly, the CFS has been there since the year 2000, and it has obviously served its purpose but it does not have the up-to-date facilities that we would want to see in a modern control centre, and that's what the government is working through at the moment.

The SPEAKER: I call to order the deputy leader and the member for Stuart because they just shouted continually at the Minister for Emergency Services when he offered no provocation: he simply provided information.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: But to a different question, sir.

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is warned.

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