Emergency Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2011

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) -- It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on the Emergency Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2011. As we have heard from many members, this is a very important bill. This legislation and this issue affect members from all sides of politics and they affect all people within our community. We must ensure that we continue to strive to be better at responding on this issue; we must continue to improve our systems and processes; we must look for the best ways of ensuring that the proper responses and emergency services are put in place; and in doing that we must ensure that we reduce as much aspossible the number of lives lost during a natural disaster.

I draw the attention of the house to the fact that in such an important debate as this currently there are only two members of the opposition in the house, whereas on our side we are in full spirit and we are here to debate a very important piece of legislation. We are committed to this and we are here not just in spirit but in presence as well to ensure that this legislation goes through.

We need to be prepared for all natural disasters. Members elected to this house in 2010 have already seen floods -- many of us experienced the floods last year and then had the experience of responding to the consequences of those floods and being there for our communities that suffered during that time. Many members have gone through or have known people that experienced the terrible effects of the Black Saturday fires.

It is important that we debate and bring in this important piece of legislation at the time we are commemorating the Black Saturday bushfires, which were certainly significant. On Tuesday we commemorated the 173 men, women and children who lost their lives three years ago in that horrific and terrible event.

We need to be prepared for these disasters. We need to ensure that we look at all forms of emergency services, processes and activities and that we are able to inform people of such potential disasters at the earliest possible time and in the most timely possible manner. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, the Deputy Premier, for his excellent work in this area, for releasing a green paper and for his consultation in this process. I would like to inform the house that this green paper sought wide consultation from a number of different areas.

It sought consultation from those who are directly involved in emergency services, those who are involved in agencies, people from the Municipal Association of Victoria, volunteers and volunteer organisations.

We received over 90 submissions that helped us to create the green paper. There was a two-month consultation -- an extensive consultation. That is the form of this government -- we are here to consult; we are not here to just rush into legislation. We are here to talk to the people who are most affected and the people who have the ideas to ensure that we have good policy. We are prepared to make the decisions, including the hard decisions, to ensure that Victorians are protected. That green paper will form the basis of a white paper that will ensure the creation of further legislation that will be debated, and that will further ensure that we have good policies and good programs in place. Such legislation will ensure that our emergency services are the best we can offer and certainly the best in this country.

The key to the green paper and to the further consultation in drafting this bill was to look at structures, response times and laws in order to improve our support for the thousands of volunteers that put their lives on the line each and every day. We have heard already that there are many service organisations that in fact do that and that have sacrificed so much to protect their communities. I can only imagine what it is like for these people to be at the front line, to be fighting fires, to be out there helping people, helping in floods and helping in any natural disaster -- and they are not only dealing with immediate consequences, they are also providing support in relation to the issues that remain when the actual events are over.

We need to take into account the lessons learnt from the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, and this bill does that. We have taken into account the flood review. I am glad we are looking at reviewing the compensation for volunteers, in particular volunteers who come from interstate.

As we have heard from members who have already commented on this bill today, these sorts of natural disasters do not affect just those in the immediate communities; at a time of need people from interstate and from overseas come to one another's aid and put their lives on the line by fighting the issues at hand and protecting people's lives.

The last things these people should need to be worrying about are insurance covers and those sorts of obligations. Really, the first and foremost thing in their minds should be helping one another. That is what Victorians are built on: we are built on volunteering. We have communities that go far and beyond to volunteer and help one another. I would also like to put a call out to those people who are considering getting involved in helping to say that they should do so, because there is nothing better than helping and supporting one another; that is what we have seen time and again.

In my first month in office I was fortunate, as were many others who joined me, to go out during the floods to visit and support communities and get involved. It certainly showed me how important it is to help these communities. My wife and I were also involved in the Black Saturday recovery effort, going into bushfire-affected areas to support and work with those communities, and we were able to see the front-line volunteers who did not sleep and who did not have time to do anything but look after one another.

We need to ensure that the proper processes are in place. This bill looks at a wide range of things, including providing alarm mechanisms, ensuring that there are processes for declaring emergencies and also ensuring that there are promotional activities like fundraising to allow the state emergency services to provide basic things. These things are expensive, and governments should help out in whatever way they can. We should also provide the opportunity for emergency service volunteer groups to fundraise to ensure that money is available when it is most needed.

I draw attention to the bill, particularly the provisions allowing fire services to charge owners, occupiers and owners corporations when they attend false alarms or when automatic alarms go off. Certainly there are times when this cannot be helped and it is allowed -- they are not obligated to pay. But this bill tightens things up and ensures that people can get systems right and processes in place.

This is a very good piece of legislation; it is comprehensive. It is not the end; we will continue to do a lot more work on this issue, and it is very important that we do. I am very supportive of the great work the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, the Deputy Premier and others have done on this great piece of legislation. I commend the bill to the house.