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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-03 Daily Xml
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Public Works Committee: Noarlunga State Emergency Service Unit

Mr BROWN (Florey) (11:18): I move:

That the eighth report of the committee, entitled Noarlunga State Emergency Service Unit, be noted.

The South Australian State Emergency Service, also known as the SES, is an emergency assistance and rescue organisation, which I am sure is well known to many members. It provides emergency assistance to the people of South Australia 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Its mission is to minimise injury, loss of life and damage from natural disasters and other emergencies. The service relies on the dedicated work of 1,600 volunteers and a team of full-time staff based in 73 units across the state.

The Noarlunga unit services one of the largest response areas in the southern metropolitan region. The area is a mix of public housing, private residential developments, large commercial developments and agricultural land. The SES leases its current Noarlunga facility from the City of Onkaparinga. However, that facility has reached the end of its asset life and no longer meets the needs of the emergency service.

To address this problem, the SES procured a new site in 2020 with the aim of constructing a purpose-built operations unit. The site was strategically selected to provide better access to the greater Noarlunga area. It also allows construction on land owned by the state government, providing great operational certainty going forward. The planned facility will consist of an operations unit, an appliance building and a trailer shed. The operations unit will include a 105 square metre training room, which can function as a major incident control centre during emergencies.

The overall design has incorporated important environmental initiatives, such as water storage tanks, recycling systems, solar power and recycled building materials. A key aim of these works is to create much-needed space for rescue appliances, vehicle access and staff training. The proposed facility will ensure that the SES has the resources it needs to protect the residential, commercial and industrial assets in the southern suburbs well into the future.

Construction is scheduled to commence in January 2023, with completion approximately eight months later. The capital cost is estimated at $5.25 million. It has been affirmed by the SES that the Department of Treasury and Finance has been appropriately consulted and that the proper advice with respect to legal, financial and procedural matters has been sought. The committee has examined written and oral evidence in relation to the Noarlunga State Emergency Service Unit. Witnesses who appeared before the committee were:

Mrs Kristy Phelps, General Manager of the SA State Emergency Service;

Ms Shannon Barry, a graduate officer with the SA State Emergency Service;

Mr James Bucella, Building Project Officer, SA State Emergency Service;

Mr James McDonald, Manager, Project Management, Department for Infrastructure and Transport;

Mr Justin Tullet, Project Manager, Construction Adviser, Department for Infrastructure and Transport.

I thank the witnesses for their time in presenting the project to the committee. Based upon the evidence considered, and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed public work.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:22): I rise to support this report into the new Noarlunga State Emergency Service Unit at Lonsdale. This is a much-needed facility servicing the southern area of our state and is located obviously just to the southern part of metropolitan Adelaide. The response area is approximately 400 square kilometres, and there is a large mix of public housing, private residential developments, large commercial developments and some agricultural land.

The SES at Noarlunga has its existing facility, which is leased from the City of Onkaparinga, and the SES has made a point that this facility has reached the end of its asset life, its operational life, and that it no longer meets the needs of that broader community of the southern metropolitan area and the surrounding community. It is to be noted that during the Marshall Liberal government's term in office, in 2020 the new site was procured with the aim of constructing a new purpose-built service unit, which will be located at Lindsay Road, Lonsdale.

This 5,000 square metres site will allow the construction of a modern facility on land owned by the state government, providing greater operational certainty moving forward. The site is strategically located, with vehicle access to Sheriffs Road and the Southern Expressway, providing crucial and direct access to the greater Noarlunga area. The overall aim of the facility is to provide sufficient space for training and operational crew and rescue appliances, as well as improved access. The building will provide appropriate training and operational facilities, along with off-street car parking for SES staff and visitors, and it will comprise an operations unit, an appliance building and a trailer shed.

In regard to the facilities that the operations building will cover, there will be the 105 square metre training room, which can function as a major incident control centre during a major emergency or multiple emergencies. It has three offices; an operations room; a storeroom; a kitchen; and male, female and accessible bathrooms.

The actual appliance building will comprise five engine bays with acrylic panel-lift doors and battery backup to accommodate SES appliances. There will be male and female change rooms, an accessible bathroom, a laundry area with trough, and the trailer shed will comprise three trailer bays. The design will facilitate the construction of an operational SES unit that is durable, and it will have an operational life of at least 40 years, with an expected site presence of 100 years—so this is building into the future. The design of the whole facility was developed with the aim of ensuring that the operational requirements of the SES were achieved.

In regard to the operations building, it is a single-storey design of steel frame, masonry wall construction, with external steel cladding above and a skillion roof with pre-finished Colorbond sheeting. The glazed areas will be protected from the sun by extensive roof overhangs. It will certainly meet the design requirements of level 3.

The appliance building is a single-storey design of structural steel framing, external steel cladding and a skillion roof, with a combination of pre-finished Colorbond sheeting and translucent polycarbonate to allow natural light to penetrate. The building will obviously have five glazed panel-lift doors, which will maintain a brand of presence in the community and the SES. That building has been designed to meet importance level 4 requirements.

In regard to the trailer shed, it is a single-storey design of structural steel framing, external steel cladding and a skillion roof, with a combination of pre-finished Colorbond sheeting and translucent polycarbonate, again to allow natural light to penetrate. It will have three glazed panel-lift doors. It has been designed to meet the importance level 4 requirements.

As I indicated before, it will have access off different roads in the area. There will be two access points off Lindsay Road. Staff and visitors will be able to enter and exit from controlled access points on the northern and southern side of the site. Emergency vehicles returning to the site will enter from the northern access point and exit from the southern access point. It is noted that the appropriate landscaping will take place.

It is also noted that this build will be around $5 million. It is to be commended to support not just volunteers in the Noarlunga area but the 1,600 plus volunteers the SES has in this state. It was very pleasing recently to be at Strathalbyn, in my electorate, with the Minister for Emergency Services opening the new $2.65 million facility there that was instigated under us as the Marshall Liberal government. It is very pleasing to see that support in the southern regional area of our state.

These facilities continue to be improved over time. We need to make sure we keep our community safe in all aspects of emergencies that can happen. The SES have a range of call-outs they deal with, whether it be through storm damage, trees down or crash rescue. Obviously, at Murray Bridge we have river rescue, and a new boat, the Mulyawonk, was launched last year. They are looking after what will be happening with high river flows and looking after communities, providing sandbag access to people in river communities right up and down the length of the river in South Australia.

I fully commend this public works build and, as I said, this will make life for our volunteers easier and take this site into the future for up to the next 100 years.

The Hon. J.K. SZAKACS (Cheltenham—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services) (11:30): I rise in support of this report from the Public Works Committee. I thank the member for Florey and the member for Hammond for their contributions and note their support for this excellent project.

Not to add too much more on the specific design and structural details, as the member for Hammond has succinctly done, I just do want to take this opportunity to note the extraordinary work that our SES volunteers are doing. They do it every single day. As we speak, they are preparing our communities in the Riverland and Murraylands regions for the significant flows that we will be seeing coming through our state through the River Murray leading into December.

I also want to thank the families of volunteers. The families of volunteers are often not thanked publicly, but the families of our volunteers are there when the pager goes off on the weekends. They are there at home when our volunteers are attending training nights to ensure that their capability is maintained and uplifted. They are there when the storms are occurring at 2 o'clock in the morning and our amazing volunteers are paged to respond to our community at a moment's notice. So I say thank you to the families of volunteers, I want to say thank you to the SES and CFS volunteers and rescue volunteers who keep our community safe every single day.

This is a significant capability uplift for our southern suburbs. This new facility in Lonsdale to support the Noarlunga SES unit will be a very substantial investment in that growing community. It will also be a station and a facility that will futureproof and support significant events, significant emergencies and, in the event of significant disasters, it will support operations being based out of that station.

So I thank those volunteers who give so much of themselves every single day, I thank their families for supporting them to do the amazing work they do, and I commend this new station to the amazing volunteers in the Noarlunga SES and congratulate them on their work in bringing this before the Public Works Committee. I look forward to this breaking earth and being delivered for our community in the south very soon.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (11:33): I rise to support the motion. I very much appreciate the contribution we have heard just now from the minister insofar as he took the opportunity to thank those volunteers and dedicated staff of the SES statewide. Indeed, that is appropriate, and it would be a rare event that during a sitting week in this parliament we would not have occasion to refer to particular responses, and this week and this season are no exception. The works completed to the Noarlunga SES unit will be well applied. As the member for Hammond has said, it will stand that unit in good stead for a long time to come.

I share with the member for Hammond in also highlighting the important work that has recently been completed at the SES station at Strathalbyn. Similarly, it will set that unit up for the long-term future. It was also a long time coming. I think it reflects that where there is a commitment by volunteers in local areas throughout the state, where we can provide decent facilities, decent appliances and the means by which to apply voluntary effort, we can do so in such a productive way with the resources of the state.

Having adverted to Strathalbyn and the current activity of the SES, it would be remiss of me not to take the opportunity to recognise the recent work of the SES right at the heart of Heysen in responding to what was really a very unusual yet acute set of circumstances in recent weeks, when it was found that, with all this wonderful abundant rain we have been having through the spring, a dam above the town of Echunga was not only full of water but showing signs of the overburden having moved. Concern was raised by a responsible, aware and alert landowner to the potential for concern.

When we look at the range of different possible responses to address that concern, it was the SES that came to the rescue, assisted, it should be said, by the CFS and members of community. However, the SES took the lead in circumstances where residents needed to leave their homes overnight and there was a need to provide for people who were staying out of harm's way to be ready should the worst happen. It was very impressive to see the calm, diligent and thoroughgoing way in which the SES set up their central office. They based themselves at the Echunga CFS over that period of days. The way in which the community swung in behind to assist the SES, the CFS, SAPOL and other agencies was really tremendous to see.

There it was: the SES taking a central role. They can do so all the more with good facilities that are renewed and provide a home base for training and for engagement for the attraction of volunteers. Wherever we have the opportunity to improve these facilities, we should do so. I am glad to see that the Noarlunga SES unit will be one such unit as a result of these important works. I commend the motion to the house.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (11:38): I commend the motion and the work of the Public Works Committee in investigating the proposed works at the Noarlunga SES. I want to make some brief comments as one of the local members who has spent some time visiting the current SES facility and unit. It is an incredible unit that does great work in our southern suburbs community. However, it is very clear that the facilities the unit has are significantly out of date. I have been there a few times, including at one of their 24-hour training drills, when the member for Reynell and I visited and saw their work very late at night.

They have a great range of different training equipment and apparatus there, but they are operating out of some very old facilities, including a number of transportable buildings that are not fit for purpose. To give this great unit decent facilities to enable them to respond to the community is very much welcome. In particular, I would like to thank them for all the work they do in responding to calls from the community. Often that is work in terms of storm damage and the like, and often it can be as part of a broader emergency services response to bushfires, etc.

One significant response that will always be very important to my community was an event a number of years ago, when flooding happened at Old Noarlunga and the SES responded incredibly well to help evacuate people from their homes, help prevent further damage, sandbag the area and also help with the clean-up for residents afterwards. Whenever people in our community need help, those SES volunteers are always there, and it is only fitting that we should make sure they have appropriate facilities for them to do their work.

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (11:40): I also rise to support the motion and commend the new station and the report of the Public Works Committee to the house. My electorate of Davenport is based down in the south. It is not super close to the Noarlunga station, but I am quite familiar with the Noarlunga SES team from my former role as Mayor of the City of Onkaparinga. I have visited the Lonsdale station quite a few times and, as we have just heard from the member for Kaurna, it is definitely in need of an upgrade.

I remember being there on one of their training nights when it was pouring with rain. Rain was coming inside, and they were all struggling to work in those conditions. They showed me around some of the different areas of the site where they run their training sessions. The work they are doing down there is quite incredible, and it is actually quite terrifying to see some of the processes they go through when they are training to prepare them for the work they do.

They had a big pile of concrete, bricks, logs and things they had to climb through, and I saw what it was like when they rescue people in those situations. The work those volunteers do is pretty outstanding. I think there are about 60 or so volunteers at the Noarlunga site, and I know that they are extremely dedicated.

Very much like the CFS, it is a life decision when they become a volunteer. I know that quite a few of them make decisions around their lives—for example, where they are going to live must be within a two minute drive from the station so that when their pagers go off they can be there in time to get out there, save the world and protect people. We are very grateful for the work that our SES volunteers do.

We just heard from one of the other members that there are about 1,600 volunteers across our state at 73 different units, and they do all sorts of helpful work when we have storms, floods or bushfire. When there are major fires, they are always out helping the CFS. I know that they also work with our police units to assist with traffic issues. They are always there to help and they are always there on call. They are absolute heroes.

As we heard from our emergency services minister, it is also the families we need to thank. These heroes, these volunteers, always put their community first when that pager goes off. They will drop everything and get out there to look after our community and protect not only our people but also our properties. Some of the stories our volunteers have shared with me when I have visited their centres are quite incredible. It is really tough work that they do, and some of the things they see in their line of duty impact them forever. We just cannot explain enough how grateful we are for the commitment they provide to us.

I think it is Wednesday nights they have training at Lonsdale, so rain, hail or shine they will be there looking out for each other and training each other up. There are some really young kids who have volunteered there, all the way through to people who are well past retirement. I think we are just so grateful to have people like these in our community who are prepared to put their own lives on the line to save our lives.

The site there is quite dilapidated. I know they have very small locker space and change rooms, which means they cannot have men and women changing at the same time, so they have all sorts of timetables to share the facilities. This new site will allow them to grow their team and be able to deliver more of the great services they have been delivering for many years at that site. I would like to thank the Public Works Committee for their consideration of this extremely important asset. I know that all the southern communities will be very grateful to see this new site go up and the Noarlunga SES able to continue doing the good work they do.

The south has not been without its emergencies. It was not that long ago that there was some significant flooding at Port Noarlunga, which I am sure the member for Kaurna remembers well. The SES were there doing a lot of sandbagging, working with the council and other volunteer groups to make sure our communities were protected from those floods. It was only a year or two ago that there were some significant bushfires in the Cherry Gardens area, and they were there helping out the CFS as well.

On behalf of the southern community, I would like to thank the Public Works Committee for their consideration, and we look forward to seeing the new station built soon. I commend this report to the house.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (11:45): I rise also to make a brief contribution to this Public Works Committee report. It is commendable in all the ways that members have already spoken about and, as we have seen, it has been long needed down there. Obviously, as well as being a flood-prone area, it is an area of growing population. Anything that we can do to assist the SES in those peri-urban areas, particularly, when they are called upon to do all sorts of work, including flood mitigation, is to be commended.

Over the last four years, I have been lucky enough to see many SES stations and see firsthand the challenges the SES face. Obviously, they are a large group of volunteers, and I will get to that in a minute. Any large state-funded organisation has its challenges in maintaining viable workspaces. I will not name them for the purposes of this debate, but there are stations out there, in the regions particularly, that do need urgent attention.

However, as I said, it is a very difficult task for governments of any stripe to adequately address all those funding needs in one go. I trust that the current government—and, to be fair, the previous government, too, were fairly committed to this project as well, which is a big project—make sure that they are adequately funded and do the job they need to do.

I do quickly want to add my voice to the ministers' observations about the volunteers and their families. These people go above and beyond what most of us here would do. They are available 24 hours a day, every single day of the year, and they are there for no other reason—not for self-glorification, certainly not for money—than their love and their commitment to their communities. I want to add my voice to that of the rest of the members of this house to commend not only the work of the SES and the work they do every day and, of course, the work they are now doing in the Riverland and the Murraylands and so on with the pending problems they will have with the flows coming down the Murray, but also those members who take the time to go interstate.

I recently spent some time in country Victoria, and I know that they are crying out for help in terms of the volunteers they need to address the significant rains and flooding they have had there. I just want to thank the SES, particularly those who do take the time to go interstate and outside their own regions to help their fellow SES volunteers. I commend the report to the house.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (11:48): I would like to speak in support of this report and recommendation from the Public Works Committee, in terms of upgrading facilities for the SES in the southern suburbs. My view would be that any upgrading of facilities for our emergency services, particularly for those that are volunteer based, is worthy of our support and also worthy of our support in our community.

All our emergency services, whether they are paid workers or volunteers, play an increasingly important role in our community, whether it is the CFS, the MFS or the SES, and there are a whole range of other allied emergency services as well. The reality is their role is increasing in terms of the community's safety, given the climate change environment we live in today. The reality is that, with the extremes of weather we are now experiencing, we are going to be calling more and more on our emergency services to actually keep our communities safe.

Some things we can do better and therefore perhaps we will not need their services, but in some situations we are not going to be able to retrofit our urban footprint or retrofit a whole range of things, so our volunteers will be required to do a lot of emergency work in terms of rescue, protecting life and also protecting property.

For the short period of time I was the emergency services minister and involved in emergency services in this state, I was fortunate to visit a number of SES units across the state, both in the metro area and the country regions. In the general community, I think they are one of the services perhaps not fully understood in terms of the scope of work they perform in our community.

They do more than just sandbagging or removing trees and branches off roofs, etc. They do quite a bit of rescue work in association with the marine rescue wing of their service. I know there is always a call for additional resources along the south coast, along the Limestone Coast, for the rescue work they do there because the water is a bit rougher. When I visited some units in the country areas I was pleasantly surprised at the scope of work they do in terms of rescue work. They actually go up and down cliff faces, etc., rescuing people.

There is always a greater need for volunteers. Like all volunteer-based organisations, the SES and the CFS were hit by COVID in terms of people not being able to participate as volunteers. More importantly, and this is generally true right across the volunteer sector, some people have not returned to volunteering work. Both as a government and as a parliament, we need to work out why this is the case and what we need to do to remove barriers to people participating in voluntary work.

My view is that voluntary work is very important not only from a cost-saving perspective but also in terms of what volunteers do, whether that is in the SES, the CFS or volunteers in a whole range of other fields. Volunteers help build communities and build connections and that is very important. They also build a skill base in communities; they build leadership skills. People who take on leadership roles within the SES or the CFS actually build leadership skills that are transferrable to other parts of the community and can be brought into their work life.

It is increasingly tougher for volunteers. A lot of volunteers who may also work full time will find it harder to find the time to put into volunteer work if they are raising families. Having said that, I reaffirm that we as a government and as a parliament need to work out what we need to do to assist volunteers. One of the biggest complaints I get from people who want to volunteer is some of the bureaucracy behind just trying to volunteer, how difficult it is to volunteer, all the paperwork you have to do and all the record keeping you have to do, etc. Some of it makes sense, but some of it may be counterproductive and a negative in terms of our community.

When we were in opposition, I was very pleased to commit to investing in an SES unit in my electorate. I know that people in the Liberal Party have derided those election commitments. I can assure you it is one of the election commitments that has been publicly aired in my community. People know exactly where it is going, people know exactly how much it is going to cost and people do actually support it.

In fact, one of my local newspapers, The Bunyip, has all the election commitments my party made at election time. Just before the election, I was on page 3 and after the election they said, 'Okay, Piccolo, we are going to check every one you deliver.' I can assure you we will be delivering, despite the Liberal Party warning us not to commit to those commitments. Building an SES unit in Gawler is one of those commitments. Despite the fact that the Liberal Party want us to break those promises and not support the commitments we made, I think it is important that we do maintain those commitments.

Mr Teague interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Heysen is called to order. There is a point of order being raised by one of his colleagues, which I will hear under 134.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I have been reading the Public Works Committee report closely and I am struggling to identify the relevance of anything the member for Light is saying to it.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Light was reflecting, as I understand it, in general terms on the government's policy including in relation to emergency services in his own electorate and other government policy. I will listen carefully. It has been the practice of the—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members! It has been the practice of the house to allow members some latitude in debates of this type.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Light! The member for Heysen and the minister will cease their exchange. Order!

The Hon. J.K. Szakacs interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Cheltenham is called to order.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: He is undermining you, sir.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Light has the call.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: Thank you—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Florey! Member for Cheltenham, if you have a matter to raise in relation to the conduct of the member for Heysen, you can raise it as a point of order.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: I am glad that I am able to light up the debate this morning.

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Light has the call.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: My day job has been a dad, so dad jokes come with that. Coming back to the SES unit, which has been promised and will be delivered by the government, it was one of about $16 million worth of commitments which my party made leading up to the election and which we will be delivering on 100 per cent. I can assure you that my local councils are very impressed with the commitments we have made. They probably wanted more but we can only do so much.

One of the commitments we made is the Gawler-Willaston SES unit. This is a project for which I clearly lobbied within my party to get the funding but, more importantly, I would like to acknowledge John Lawrence, who is an SES officer previously with the Salisbury unit, who lobbied quite strongly and has been campaigning for some time for us to get the SES unit built in the Gawler area.

The new SES unit or facility in the southern suburbs is very important. I can tell you that the one at the other end of the metropolitan area in the north is important. My electorate is currently covered by two SES units. When I say 'covered', they are not actually located in that area. We have the Salisbury unit, which do good work and also the Kapunda unit, which also do good work. The Kapunda unit—I must get this right—also have horse unit, a horse service within their unit too.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr Brown: What are the names of the horses?

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: The names of the horses? If they were named after me, they would be thoroughbreds, wouldn't they? Or the Italian Stallion.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: The interjections warranted that comment, I think. I will get back on the horse. Those two units do serve our area, but they are spread thin, and that is the importance of this new Gawler unit. I would also like to acknowledge the minister who came out to Gawler recently to make the official announcement on behalf the government that the unit would be proceeding and that work on that unit will be commencing early next year. I can assure you it is fully supported by those other two units there; they were present at the announcement and they think it is important as well. It was also supported by the CFS because all emergency services work together in partnership to make our community safer.

For me, it is always good news when I hear money is being put into our emergency services, particularly like the SES unit here. I must for the record mention I will be joining the SES unit in my Gawler-Willaston unit. I am not sure how useful I will be. I might be behind pushing the pens and doing some admin work; I am not sure how much physical work I could do.

The Hon. J.K. Szakacs: Orange is your colour.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: Orange is my colour, thank you, minister. Orange is the new black, isn't it? I support the recommendation and the committee's work.

Mr BROWN (Florey) (11:59): I want to thank members for their fulsome contributions to this debate on this particular report. I particularly want to thank the contribution from the member for Hammond—a characteristically fulsome appreciation of the contents of the report—and it is good to see bipartisanship support of projects of this type.

I would also like to thank the Minister for Emergency Services for his contribution. I know he has always been a big supporter of the SES and continues to do a great job, in my opinion, as Minister for Emergency Services. I would like to thank the member for Heysen for his contribution. I know he is a very passionate supporter of the SES in his local area.

I would like to thank the Minister for Health for what he had to say. In particular, I know that Noarlunga is an area he has a very keen eye on to make sure they get the services they require. I would also like to thank the members for Davenport, Elizabeth and Light for their contributions. With that very brief summing up of the contributions of various members, I commend the report to the house.

Motion carried.

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