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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-06-19 Daily Xml
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CHERRYVILLE FIRE

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. D.W. Ridgway:

That it be an instruction to the Select Committee into Community Safety and Emergency Services in South Australia that its terms of reference be extended by inserting new paragraph 1A:

1A Inquire into and report on the Cherryville fire in order to:

1. Determine the circumstances of ignition and immediate CFS response;

2. Evaluate the effectiveness of the deployment and procurement of aerial assets;

3. Assess the fire danger season process and other decision-making processes in relation to imposing interim fire bans or other fire controls; and

4. Evaluate the communication of emergency response.

(Continued from 15 May 2013.)

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (16:38): The government opposes the motion from the Hon. David Ridgway to extend the terms of reference for the Select Committee into Community Safety and Emergency Services in South Australia to incorporate inquiring into the Cherryville fire. We do so because of a firmly held confidence in the integrity of already established review mechanisms and, to be frank, we are sceptical of the motives of those who seek to extend this inquiry. One would understand such a call to see this extension if there had been a sad and unfortunate loss of life, extensive property damage and/or a fundamental procedural failure.

We do not believe that parliamentary inquires are designed simply to establish that there was in fact a bushfire and that it did in fact occur in the month of May. Any observer might be lulled unsuspectingly into believing that the opposition's calls to extend the terms of reference are reasonable. They are not! Instead they are cynical and arguably vexatious. Such a call is cynical because it tries to infer that the government has something to hide or is somehow lax about natural disasters. This is entirely false. The call for the extension of the terms of reference is vexatious because it ignores the realities of this unfortunate event compared with other major fires during the season. This is a media stunt—that is all it is.

There were no calls from the opposition for an inquiry into the Tulka fire at Sleaford Bay last November. Regrettably, that particular fire destroyed one house and two sheds, the same as the Cherryville fire. However, it also destroyed 14 holiday cabins. The Tulka fire burned 2,000 hectares, compared with 650 at Cherryville. The Cherryville fire occurred outside the prescribed fire danger season, which typically signals the onset of colder weather.

The fire danger season is determined according to meteorological and topographic modelling, scientific expertise and probability. Let us consider the precedent which such an inquiry would establish, that is, what other meteorological anomalies would warrant such scrutiny. I believe I am a responsible politician and, as a former minister for emergency services I know that for those directly affected it was a distressing experience. The response of the media and the public reflects how seriously natural disasters are treated by all South Australians. Ours is a community which pulls together and displays its best character when called upon. It is because the government takes incidents such as these seriously that we do not wish to treat them as political fodder.

Not one of the five larger fires last season led to calls for a parliamentary inquiry. None of the other almost 3,000 bushfires attended to since July 2012 have produced these calls, nor for that matter have any of the, I am told, 700 house fires attended by the Metropolitan Fire Service since that time. That a fire occurred outside the season and presented a logistical challenge does not imply, nor should it, that the entire management process requires reshaping. The Cherryville fire was the confluence of a remarkable stretch of unseasonably hot weather: 8 May was one of the hottest May days in 100 years.

The fire was caused by private burn-off that got out of control. It destroyed 650 hectares, one house and two sheds on Blockers Road. By the simple metric of acreage lost, there were five incidents throughout the fire danger season that were larger than Cherryville, yet none attracted the same attention from the media and the public, let alone be inquired into by the parliament. Having said that, we all appreciate the fire's proximity to Adelaide, the accessibility of the location, the logistical challenge posed and, of course, the time of the year.

The Cherryville fire was a sting in the tail at the end of a long season, a reminder that nature can unleash her power at any time. The circumstances of the Cherryville fire do not excuse us from thinking hard about how such disasters could be prevented or mitigated in the future. This is why we should be relieved that the review procedures already in place are so comprehensive. The CFS does not sit on its hands; indeed, a separate inquiry by politicians who are not experts in the field could be counterproductive. However, I appreciate that it is not always easy to take at face value claims regarding the scope and adequacy of existing review mechanisms. Bearing this in mind, I will not ask the chamber or any member of the public to simply 'rest assured' that the CFS does all it can to keep South Australians safe; I will explain just how these procedures do so.

The State Bushfire Coordination Committee (SBCC) was established in February 2010 through an amendment to the Fire and Emergency Services Act 2005. The committee's purpose is to advise the Minister for Emergency Services on matters relating to bushfire management and prevention in risk-prone country and urban areas. The SBCC is also tasked with, where possible, the promotion and coordination of statewide bushfire management policies and procedures. The SBCC oversees the nine bushfire management areas across the state. These comprehensive independent oversight procedures are integral to the mandatory internal review processes of the CFS.

An after-action review process is undertaken at the local, regional and state levels of CFS command respectively. The local response for Cherryville was handled by an incident management team at Uraidla, which incorporated information from the East Torrens CFS. The regional response was managed by the Regional Coordination Centre at Mount Barker. This response required the support of agencies such as SAPOL and ForestrySA and included linkage to the Zone Emergency Centre, also based at Mount Barker. The CFS State Coordination Centre will conduct its own after-action review. The State Emergency Centre will debrief with all emergency functional services involved.

In addition to this harmonised three-tier response, an internal operational performance review is being undertaken within the CFS. This review is made up of three experienced and independent members of staff. These senior members of staff were asked to implement this review according to well-defined terms of reference and to report to the Chief Officer of the CFS, Mr Greg Nettleton, with lessons and recommendations as appropriate.

The distinct chain of command in place at the CFS was forged from tragedy. The 2005 Eyre Peninsula bushfires, enshrined in the collective memory of South Australians as Black Tuesday, claimed nine lives, 93 homes and over 145,000 hectares of land. Important lessons were learnt from that terrible incident.

By the time I became minister, in March 2005, the CFS had already established its own internal review, Project Phoenix. I asked Dr Bob Smith to conduct an independent review, and his report was tabled in parliament. We established a bushfire management review, chaired by Mr Vince Monterola, and, of course, we had the coronial inquest. Later, when Deputy Coroner Anthony Schapel brought down his findings and recommendations (34 of them, from memory), many had already been enacted, were in the process of being enacted, or were under consideration.

Also, and as to be expected, substantial capital investments and reforms were made to the organisational structure of the CFS. I have good reason to know this, because I was closely involved with the implementation of those reforms post the Wangary bushfires.

However, I should place on the record that since that catastrophe the implications of bushfire inquiries, as well as the Victorian royal commission, have been well observed by the CFS, which seeks to learn from every, single incident. For those honourable members who may not be aware of it, post the Victorian bushfires our CFS established its own bushfire task force into those fires to learn and report to the State Emergency Management Committee.

Again, regrettably, there were larger fires in Cherryville last summer. Others caused more damage to houses and property, but I need to stress that no organisation is better placed than the CFS to evaluate the effectiveness of the immediate response, the deployment of aerial assets and consider the length of the fire danger season. To call to see the extension of the terms of reference of the Select Committee into Community Safety and Emergency Services to extend it to inquire into just one fire which occurred this year is driven largely by transparently political motives. It seeks to impugn the government and the CFS and implies a breakdown in procedure when, in fact, the process tolerated all scrutiny.

I believe this is a time to thank and congratulate the fine work of CFS members and commend the integrity of a process which remained strong and robust. The Cherryville fire is already being scrutinised by established processes. The government believes it does not warrant a contrived inquiry by us as politicians. My humble view would be that this unfortunate fire was managed with minimal property loss and there was a reasonable outcome given the circumstances. As someone who has some knowledge of the thinking of our tremendous volunteers, I am certain the majority of them would be of the following view: just let us get on with it.

I live in the electorate of Morialta and, as to be expected, receive the newsletter by the Liberal member of the seat on a regular basis.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO: He obviously has plenty of money. I was pleased to see an accurate account of the fire and, more importantly, that he heaped praise on all our volunteers. If I may in part quote from his newsletter, 'The work done by the CFS speaks for itself.' Again, I remind members that this is not a time to be dragging our volunteers or the CFS before a select committee and, indeed, there were no calls for an inquiry from this local member who values the work of the CFS, unlike his colleagues in this chamber.

If there are any honourable members who are yet to make up their minds whether to support this motion, I say to you that our extraordinary CFS volunteers are there to see a safer community. They are not there to be part of political games, so I urge all honourable members to just let them get on with it. The government opposes the motion.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (16:53): I rise on behalf of the Greens and as a member of the select committee to support this motion put forward by the Hon. David Ridgway. The select committee, which is chaired by the Hon. Robert Brokenshire, sat on the Notice Paper of this place for some time before we had the capacity to set it up. The overall terms of reference of this Select Committee into Community Safety and Emergency Services in South Australia, I believe, are not partisan. If the government truly did believe that it was a partisan committee, then perhaps they should have provided more than one member to this committee to ensure that their political interests were protected. What we are about as members of this committee putting in the hard time, listening to submissions from volunteers—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Ridgway will get his opportunity to make a contribution later. The Hon. Ms Franks has the call.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: What we on this committee are interested in is a better deal, better treatment and better respect for emergency services and community safety in this state. I must say, and I cannot reflect too much on the business of the committee I understand under standing orders, but so far I am yet to hear great confidence in some of the ministerial decisions in this area. However, getting back to the particular motion we have before us, I believe these are legitimate and fair terms of reference to add to the already large terms of reference of the committee, which we are working through with, as I said, the assistance of only one government member to that burden of work.

The Cherryville fire attracted greater attention than many of the fires that the Hon. Carmel Zollo has mentioned, and as she said herself, it was on one of the hottest May days in 100 years and outside of the fire season. This in itself is cause for some review of our processes and procedures. The fact that only one house was lost means the CFS volunteers and support agencies are to be commended; they did a fantastic job. However, there are clearly changes, perhaps in climate change, that need to be addressed in our state's current policies and procedures.

This is a timely point at which those members of the opposition and crossbench, who have put their hands up to do the hard lifting that the government was unwilling to do, are quite prepared to do. So, how about you let us get on with the job of ensuring the voices of the emergency and community safety volunteers and others in this state are heard?

It cannot go unrecognised that this is the government that refuses to accept that the CFS volunteers deserve the same recognition with regard to the presumptive cancer legislation as their MFS comrades. As I have said many times, the fires cannot differentiate between whether or not somebody takes home a pay packet for standing there and fighting those fires. The science is in: the science is about the type of structural fires that are fought by our CFS volunteers, as are fought by the MFS volunteers. Yet, on that issue, the government has sat on its hands.

The CFS are not being blamed in any way. I believe that with the crossbenchers and the opposition, we have a nonpartisan committee that is actually putting the safety and needs of this state first. As I have said, if the government was truly concerned that this was a partisan committee, they would have done the numbers and actually put some people on this committee other than the Hon. Kyam Maher. With that, I commend the motion to the council. I look forward to taking submissions—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Ms Franks.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: —and I trust that our process will be more robust than that which the government claims to favour.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Ridgway.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (16:58): I thank members for their contributions. I do not want to prolong things today, but I will respond to a couple of—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Well, I could, but I do not want to prolong it. I think, as we all know, this was a particularly unusual set of circumstances, as the Hon. Carmel Zollo and the Hon. Tammy Franks have alluded to—it was after the end of the fire danger season and it was an extremely hot day. I think that, for those facts alone, it would be worthwhile having a quick forensic look at what went on.

Let us look at the extra terms of reference. 'Determine the circumstances of ignition and immediate CFS response'—because it was a hot day and because it after the fire danger season, were there any reasons why that response was perhaps not as prompt as it could have been? 'Evaluate the effectiveness of the deployment and procurement of aerial assets'—I would hate to think that, with the budget in the parlous state it is, the aerial assets were not on standby because it was the end of the fire danger season, even though it was the hottest day in 100 years.

I think there are some things that need to be looked at, not to point blame or say anybody is at fault, but to make sure that these sorts of things do not happen again in the future. We certainly do value the CFS, but as always with government when they have made a mess of the state's finances, the resources that are given not just to our volunteers but to all people who protect our state are often reduced and brought under pressure.

I think it is important that we add these terms of reference. I know that the select committee is quite happy to have a look at that almost as a matter of urgency so that those issues can be addressed. If there is anything to be learnt from it, then the select committee can make some recommendations to this parliament, maybe by way of an interim report prior to their final report. So, with those few words, I would urge all members to support this motion.

Motion carried.

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