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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-05 Daily Xml
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South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:08): My question is again to the Premier. Is the MFS understaffed and, if so, how many staff have been or should be allocated to now resolve the backlogs? There is an explanation if it might help, with leave.

Leave granted.

Mr TEAGUE: This might provide some assistance. On 14 May SAET found that the MFS had unlawfully withheld travel payments to MFS firefighters. During the case, MFS Executive Director Ms Prema Osborne testified, and I quote:

…two ex-staff members were responsible for processing payments…

However, and I quote:

…their replacements were not given additional resources to fix the backlog because of budget constraints.

Ms Osborne has since left the MFS.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:09): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. Again, I might take some of those questions on notice, except to say this: the government is committed to making sure that the MFS is resourced adequately. In fact, I had the great privilege of being the Minister for Emergency Services in a former government and I am conscious of the fact that within the enterprise agreement that the government has with the MFS—and I understand this has been sustained over a period of time—there are very clear requirements on the government in terms of how we staff trucks and stations and resources. There are clear requirements around how many people are on each shift and so forth. I understand they are being complied with as best as possible.

In fact, I was very pleased to play a role when the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport was Treasurer to boost staffing levels at the MFS. One thing that we are conscious of as a government more broadly is that there is a very large overtime budget within the MFS. In many ways it has represented in the past opportunities for increased staffing because that often makes better sense than paying overtime.

As a government, we are looking to make sure there are ways that the MFS budget is brought under control so there is not a risk of unnecessary budget overruns, and staffing levels is one of the considerations that is always considered in that context.

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