Emergency Services

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:48): I rise again on this matter of interest to put further on the public record my concerns about proposed changes to the emergency services. I acknowledge, respect and appreciate that the Hon. Tony Piccolo personally believes that he is doing the right thing in the way he is going about this, but I do need to put on the public record some of the responses he wrote to me about after I did my last matter of interest in this house.

Whilst the minister says that the process is in response to last year's review by the Hon. Paul Holloway into the Fire and Emergency Services Act and to ensure that the emergency services sector is appropriately resourced into the future, the reality is—and I respect the Hon. Paul Holloway, but the terms of reference for the work he did and what he had to provide for was directed by the Labor government with a direct agenda.

In the letter from the minister he says that my comments about the reform process and appeasing the United Firefighters Union are extremely ill informed and do not represent the views of the thousands of emergency staff and volunteers that I have personally spoken with across the state. Sir, my comments are informed and can I put to you that, if the UFU were not going to do alright out of this, they would do what they did previously and they would have the snorkel up in the window looking at the desk of the minister, intimidating the minister and doing all sorts of other things that they used to do, including the stickers that they had all over their fire trucks when I was minister.

The UFU is not intimidating the government nor the minister. There are a lot of sugar-coated opportunities here for the UFU, I believe at the expense of the volunteers of the CFS and the SES, notwithstanding, of course, the volunteers in blue and white water, mainly the marine rescue and the surf lifesaving.

The fact of the matter is the government say they will be looking to put the volunteers charter into legislation. That is way overdue and I support that, but that can be done without structural changes that I believe are the thin end of the wedge for those emergency services. There was a report, which I will talk more about later on, done in the late 1980s which was always endorsed by Labor when in government and it is ironical that what they are now proposing is very similar to that report. The minister goes on to say that:

While the sector performs well operationally, it is widely acknowledged that the structure itself is not efficient.

I am not sure about that and I want more answers as to where they are inefficient. He says:

The reform will reduce significant duplication across the sector with savings reinvested back into front line services.

Sir, I put to you that, if the reforms that were made available by SAFECOM were actually implemented properly, there would be more efficiencies, but this government has had SAFECOM going for something like 10 to 12 years and SAFECOM has not provided the reform. How is it going to be different now? He goes on also to say that I suggested in my speech, and I did, that I am not being well advised. I stand by that. He said:

I can assure you that my service chiefs and the chief executive of SAFECOM have been involved with the reform from day one.

I question that, from information that I have sourced. The ones who are supportive of this are the ones who are scared for their jobs and/or have been wink-wink, nod-nod promised a job under the new structure. I would say to those people that they need to put the interests of the people that they serve, and particularly the volunteers, in front of their own ambitions and personal desires. I would like to speak to them to find out just what has been offered to them. The minister also says:

They understand the need to reform and have provided me with a new sector model for consideration.

I will not be anything but relentless in putting the other side of this debate. I hope the association sticks strong because, whilst the minister may have had the luxury of going across the state to round tables and meetings that I have not had, I have had the luxury of being contacted by a lot of volunteers directly, across most of the regions of this state—indeed, from the Fleurieu Peninsula right back through to Eyre Peninsula—and, sir, I can tell you that they are very concerned.

I say to those volunteers that they do not have to be forced into anything by the government. The volunteers are already angry about the massive ESL. They are angry they have not been included in the compensation for cancer illnesses that are contracted when you are firefighting, such as the MFS has been included in; and they are also angry that there are very little budgetary increases for them at a time when they need to hire.

I say to the minister: I would like to work closely with the minister on this. I have a meeting this afternoon with the minister and some of my colleagues but I believe this is, as I said, the thin end of the wedge and we must ensure the autonomy and proper structures long-term for the CFS and SES and, of course, marine rescue and surf lifesaving.