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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-09-05 Daily Xml
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COMMUNITY SAFETY AND EMERGENCY SERVICES

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (17:35): By leave, I move my motion in an amended form:

1. That a Select Committee of the Legislative Council be established to inquire into and report on community safety and emergency services in South Australia, including:

(a) The status of funding, resources and policy initiatives for community safety and emergency services in South Australia, viz:

(i) the South Australia Police;

(ii) the SA Ambulance Service;

(iii) the Country Fire Service;

(iv) the State Emergency Service;

(v) the Volunteer Marine Rescue;

(vi) the Metropolitan Fire Service;

(vii) the South Australian Fire and Emergency Services Commission; and

(viii) the rescue components of—

(ix) Surf Life Saving South Australia (SLSSA);

(x) South Australia Police Rescue; and

(xi) the State Rescue Helicopter Service.

(b) The process leading up to the creation of the new Community Safety Directorate and analysis of the structure and operations of the directorate;

(c) The historical and current adequacy of the Emergency Services Levy to meet emergency services funding and resource requirements;

(d) The accuracy and adequacy of crime statistics and other key performance indicators as a measure of community safety perceptions and realities; and

(e) Any other related matter.

2. That standing order No. 389 be so far suspended as to enable the chairperson of the committee to have a deliberative vote only.

3. That this council permits the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication, as it sees fit, of any evidence or documents presented to the committee prior to such evidence being presented to the council.

4. That standing order No. 396 be suspended to enable strangers to be admitted when the select committee is examining witnesses unless the committee otherwise resolves, but they shall be excluded when the committee is deliberating.

This motion is broader than the original motion due in part to further research on the motion revealing the crossover in community safety and emergency services issues but also the difficulty in comparing budgets over the last 10 years, given much of the emergency services function was contained within the global budget for the overarching department, and that is true to an extent today. Concerns have been raised with me by workers at the coalface upwards about funding of services, not just for emergencies but for community safety.

I am going to be brief at this point in time because I will wait and summarise in detail what my colleagues have to say with respect to the motion that I am putting up, which I hope to put to a vote in early October. I say at this point in time that we have seen police budget cuts and delays in recruitment, we have this new Community Safety Directorate which several people in key positions have indicated to me they have concerns over with respect to its formation.

Crime stats are an issue, too, that we need to have a look at. Many people say they are not reporting crime and we need to establish just what the facts are around crime and then the funding of the emergency services levy and what is clearly a relative funding shortfall in many of the emergency services that I am sure all colleagues have had representation on from some of those services.

In conclusion, I know that we have had a lot of select committees and that it is a busy workload for all members in this chamber. We have been able to clear up a few select committees recently and I am advised by some colleagues that there are others that are close to being completed. I think this is an important select committee, particularly before the review of the act and given the time since the emergency services levy came into being and where we are today. I commend the motion to the house and I look forward to summarising further details with respect to the motion after colleagues have had contribution to the debate prior to it being put to a vote.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

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