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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-11-30 Daily Xml
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Parliamentary Committees

Select Committee on Emergency Services Reform

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (16:20): I move:

That the report of the select committee be noted.

Yesterday, I tabled the documentation regarding the inquiry of the select committee into emergency services. Before I speak to that, I want to acknowledge the good work of my colleagues, the Hon. John Dawkins, the Hon. Andrew McLachlan, the Hon. Tammy Franks and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars. I also want to place on the public record my appreciation, as chair, of the ongoing very good work of Ms Leslie Guy. She does an excellent job, as indeed do the staff generally in this place, and we do not get a chance to thank them enough for their very dedicated work.

Even little things like trying to get meetings together is a huge job for them, taking into account the busy schedules of members of the Legislative Council. I want to also thank Dr Trevor Bailey, who is well known to many of my colleagues in this place. He is an absolute professional in the way that he goes about writing reports and he is a credit to himself and is very much an asset to parliament.

We gave everybody a chance to come and present evidence and we received quite detailed submissions. Some were keener to come before the committee than others, and I will leave it at that. The whole purpose was to try to establish once and for all whether or not Labor governments have an intent to a single fire service. We go right back to the Bruce report in the late 1980s, or the early 1990s, and the first attempt of what was then another Labor government to look at the possibility of bringing the fire services together.

It is interesting to note at the moment, where that was occurring in Victoria under the present Labor government there, the enormous backlash, to the extent that the Prime Minister, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, has personally intervened to bring in legislation to protect the central issue of autonomy for volunteers.

I want to place on the record my appreciation to all those who contributed to the evidence. I want to particularly put on the record my appreciation of the CFS and SES volunteer associations, which represented their constituents with vigour, in a professional way and gave good direct evidence to the committee. The heads of the emergency services came forward also and I was a little surprised, frankly, and I am going to put it on the public record, that some of them, under privilege, representing people—be they paid or volunteer—underneath them, would have been a little more open than they were when it came to budgets and the issues around the ethos and importance of individuality between emergency services. We are talking particularly here about the CFS, SES and MFS.

The committee considered all the evidence, and it was interesting. I want to reinforce this and put this on the public record, that we considered the views, and they were directly expressed and summarised, I believe, by the Country Fire Service Volunteers Association (CFSVA) president, Mr Wood. It is actually in the introduction of the CFS Volunteer Yearbook 2016, page 5. I will quote what Mr Wood had to say:

The former Emergency Services Minister's sector reform process—

That former minister, so that we get this right for the record, was the Hon. Tony Piccolo—

…introduced in June 2014, could at best be described as seriously flawed and at worst extremely dangerous, and Government's interference into operational matters outside of their legislative bounds caused serious concerns. The ambiguities and lack of details in the former Minister's agenda coupled with a lack of tolerance towards anyone with differing views only served to marginalised [sic] and exclude concerned volunteers and organisations.

The message delivered to the former Minister by the CFSVA was clear in that volunteers would only support change that provided value for money, improved services to South Australian communities and improved levels of support to volunteers. The CFSVA stood firmly on its initial position in that volunteers would not accept change merely for the sake of change…

The CFSVA cannot stress enough the importance of CFS volunteers remaining involved, focussed, part of the journey, and masters of their own destiny.

This was brought to my attention by one of my colleagues, the Hon. John Dawkins, who astutely was looking at the detail of that report; I put that on the record. We deliberated on that, and I have to say that those words were a very precise summary of what the majority, at least, of the committee thought was the situation. One of the things that we were not able to establish with clear DNA was whether this change agenda was a change agenda driven by the then minister autonomous to the government and cabinet, particularly initially, and the caucus—very important—or whether it was at the direction of the executive of the government, that is, cabinet.

We were never able to really establish that. I want to say and put on the public record before I go any further that I am not doubting the genuine intention of then minister Piccolo to want to make improvements to the emergency services, and I am not doubting the fact that he believes in volunteers; I want to make that clear on the record. What we did establish was that the way the whole process started to evolve was fraught with danger from the beginning. It actually had the potential, as it further developed—and I am not saying this lightly—to see a significant exodus of volunteers, particularly from the CFS and the SES.

We knew that was happening because we had had significant representation, as individuals, on concerns that the volunteers had. The volunteers have always been vigilant about the fact that they do not want to see a single fire service. They do want to see autonomy. Yes, they are happy to look at streamlining training and procurement and they are happy to work alongside each other, and in fact we have seen them doing a great job of that with the expanded emergency services organisations in fires as recent as the tragic Pinery fire just over one year ago in the Mid North. We also took enough evidence to know that there are clear differences in specific roles between the CFS, SES, MFS, and even SAPOL's rescue area of the agency and bluewater/whitewater rescue. They do all have separate important independent roles.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances that we hope will soon be much improved for our colleague the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars and his family, he was not able to be there for the last few meetings. Therefore, we are not going to finalise all of the reporting on this today. We will wait until next year for the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars to be able to have his input into the report and the recommendations.

What I do want to say is that in coming up with these recommendations, there was absolute support from the majority of the committee. We could have put forward probably 100 recommendations, based on all of the evidence, but there was one clear stand-out issue that we needed to address on behalf of the volunteers of this state. So, after much deliberation and consideration of all of the evidence, both written and oral, it was decided that we would focus on what we believe are the most important recommendations:

that the government acknowledges and accepts the difference in culture and motivation that exists within the emergency services and resists any further attempts at sector reform without initial contact with the Volunteer Emergency Services associations, and consultation with the parliament; and

that a CFS and SES volunteer charter be enshrined in legislation to ensure that government fulfils its obligations to the volunteers.

If this is to occur, I would encourage the now minister, the Hon. Peter Malinauskas, to carefully, with his staff, read this report, look at these recommendations and bring in legislation next year. It would be multipartisan supported, there is no doubt about that. When other colleagues speak about this today or next year, I am sure they will also indicate that. It is important that the sooner this is done the better, because this is something that has been expected by, particularly, the CFS and the SES associations, on behalf of their volunteers, for a long time and it has not been forthcoming; that, is to enshrine it in legislation. What this will do is restore volunteer confidence in the government's commitment to volunteering in the emergency services sector.

We need to reinstate absolute confidence to these volunteers now. I hope it does not happen, but the reality is, the way the fuel load is and with all the modelling around climate change indicating more severe fires into the future, that we face a potentially serious fire risk every summer, and this one in particular, because we have had above-average rainfall and we have seen a great season across South Australia.

We must not just have a situation where the Premier and ministers are out there on the fire ground after a significant fire or, in some cases, a declared state disaster, as in a very big fire, in brand-new CFS overalls, talking about what a great job the volunteers did. They do not want that. There was, within the report, and members are welcome to have a look at it, some discussion around some of that media coverage with ministers and others. It is worth having a look at.

The reality is, the volunteers do not want that. What they want, in summary, is the best possible financial support to meet their needs. They want to know that they have backup, paid support and training opportunities. They want to know that their PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is at best practice when it comes to the quality and reliability and safety of those products. Most of all, they want to know that they are genuinely embraced and supported for the dedicated work they do, not only by the South Australian community, but by the government and the parliament.

The way to do that is not in a monetary way. It is to enshrine in legislation these charters. I believe that if these charters are enshrined in legislation, you will see huge confidence reinstalled into those volunteer services and you will see a chance to grow the recruitment opportunities for people to join those services. We all know the great work that they do. We could never put a price on the work they do because it would be impossible to cost it.

Having said that, we know that the one thing they do want—and I am talking about people who put their life on the line as volunteers to protect the rest of us and the property that we have in South Australia. They have been nervous for some time now under this government; I want to make no mistake about that on the record. The CFS and the SES have been very nervous about this Labor government for probably close to a decade. It is not all rosy yet. I hope the government understands that. When the minister's advisers have a close look at what we are saying here with this select committee report, I hope they realise that the government is still on notice with the volunteers.

The volunteers want one thing and one thing only. They want to know, whether it is a Liberal government, a Labor government, whether the crossbenchers comprise Family First, the Greens, NXT, d4d, or anyone else, they want to know that the parliament stands behind them with the charter that must be enshrined in legislation. If we show them that, then we will move forward very positively to the growth and development of our emergency services.

That is why, after a lot of deliberation, we decided to keep this as two simple but very important and effective recommendations that do not cost the government any money. We did not do this to have a go at the government, we did not move this select committee to have a go at the government. We moved this select committee because this Legislative Council, that is the absolute majority of this Legislative Council, knew that there was a problem with the ethos of volunteers, particularly in the CFS and the SES, and we had to do something to help reinstate that confidence.

That is why we moved to establish the committee and that is why we are reporting only two recommendations. I ask the government not to dismiss these recommendations. The government must come back and report to the house on this report, and I ask them to advise the house that they will be adopting both of these recommendations and that we will see as a priority in the 2017 sitting year of the Legislative Council and House of Assembly legislation to enshrine the charter of the SES and CFS. I commend the report to the house.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (16:38): I rise briefly to support the noting of this report and echo the contribution of the chair of the committee, the Hon. Mr Brokenshire. I think the Hon. Mr Brokenshire has covered the essence of the report and the two recommendations very well. This whole saga has been a sad one. The Hon. Mr Brokenshire, and anybody else who has ever worked as a volunteer in the emergency services sector, would understand their commitment and understand, as the Hon. Mr Brokenshire said, the mistrust of government at the moment out there.

We have seen what has been happening in Victoria. I have great friends in Victoria who have been involved with the CFA for many years. They are almost at their wits' end, because all they want to do is get on and fight fires, or do the road accident work or do the assistance with floods, that they also do, and they are completely sick of some of the things that have been happening in their sector. I am very grateful that the Hon. Mr Brokenshire has brought to our attention the comments by the CFSVA president, Mr Andy Wood, in that CFS Volunteer Yearbook 2016. It is interesting to note that that article was placed right below the article from the current minister, the Hon. Peter Malinauskas. I do highlight the fact that in that article Mr Andy Wood did say that the former Emergency Services Minister's sector reform process could, at best, be described a seriously flawed and at worst extremely dangerous.

He is, of course, talking about the member for Light in another place, the Hon. Tony Piccolo, who, in many senses, has his heart in the right place about volunteers, but when it came to the pressure that was put on him by the United Firefighters Union he succumbed. He made a half-baked attempt at trying to do what we have seen happening in Victoria, and the fact that we have not had the full Victorian experience is a great thing because that is a debacle over there.

I think everybody who supports the CFS, SES and other volunteer organisations that give of themselves to protect the community should be completely concerned about those comments and the fact that it did undermine the confidence that the volunteer sector has in the government. What was brought home to me when I was recently able to attend the opening of the new CFS station at Gawler River, where I grew up, was that sense that the volunteers there just want to get on with the job. The minister was there that day and Mr Piccolo was there that day and the leading officers of the CFS were all there.

The current brigade volunteers—and, might I say, there were a number of people like me who were the original members of the brigade in 1978—just want that brigade and all the other brigades to be able to get on with what they do well and they should not have to be fighting the sort of political issues that were brought on their doorstep. I do commend the recommendations, which the Hon. Mr Brokenshire has highlighted, particularly about the complete difference in culture and motivation between, certainly, the paid firefighters and the volunteer firefighters. There can be, and is, great cooperation between both of them but let's not put any more wedges between them. However, we also need to recognise that there is a different culture, and also the recommendation that the CFS and SES volunteer charter be enshrined in legislation.

In conclusion, I also want to indicate my great thanks to the committee secretary, Ms Leslie Guy, who is just around the corner from me here. She has to put up with my bellowing voice, which is probably a shame for her. Also, great thanks to Dr Trevor Bailey. I have had the privilege of being on at least two, and probably three, committees where Dr Bailey has been the research officer and I think the very quiet and unassuming way in which he gets on and does the reports and reads the mood and direction of the committee is a talent that he has and we were very grateful for his efforts in this work. With those remarks, I commend the motion to the council.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.J. Stephens.

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