Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to address yet again the question of the protection of the Australian community in the face of both natural and human disasters because it is an issue of enormous interest to us, especially as we move towards the bushfire season in southern Australia. State Alert, a telephone based early warning system, is actually up and running in Western Australia. I wish to speak about this in some detail.

One of the key recommendations of the interim report of the Victorian royal commission into the disastrous bushfires on 7 February this year was the need for an effective, efficient, early warning system that can get to as many people as possible. It is no wonder that the commissioner made that recommendation, because tragically some 176 people died as a result of that fire and, worst of all for those associated with the fire industry, the vast majority of those people died in their homes or around their homes. That is evidence of the fact that they either were not warned to leave early or did not realise the seriousness and did not make that decision, obviously to the regret of all concerned.

Some weeks ago in Western Australia State Alert commenced. It was demonstrated in the outer Perth suburb of Bedfordale. It is the result of eight or nine years of work. In fact, it was ready some two years ago, but we were only able to release it in August this year. I will run through the exercise.

The incident controller indicated to the person in control that a fire of some severity was threatening Bedfordale. In less than five minutes some 800 households received a telephone message, those that had faxes received a faxed message and mobile phones that were registered in the system—and I will refer to that in a moment—received a call or an SMS. All of this happened within five minutes of the incident controller informing the relevant authorities that he needed to send a warning. Surveys were conducted in that area immediately following that launch. It is very pleasing that, within five days, more than 40 per cent of households in that area responded and, equally importantly, 95 per cent of those who responded said that the message was clear, they understood it and, had it been a real situation, they could have acted early.

Why do I raise this in this chamber? Simply because the Western Australian then Labor government and the now Liberal and National government have offered this technology to all of their colleagues in the emergency services in Australia for free. It has cost $700,000 to $800,000 to develop. Under the auspices of the Australasian Fire Authorities Council—an absolutely wonderful group, which I had the privilege of being a member of when I ran the Bushfires Board in WA—the Western Australian government has offered that system. Regrettably, and for reasons I do not understand, the other states and territories have not taken it up.

In its stead COAG made the decision earlier this year in Hobart that they would invest up to $15 million to develop exactly what is now up and running. That has gone out to tender. The tender has closed. I understand only two parties have tendered. From my own knowledge and experience of the IT industry, I can tell you that it will be at least two to three years before a system is up and running and $15 million will be only the starting figure.

What is beyond me is that, in accordance with the recommendation of the royal commission, we already have a system there able to be adopted. Several of the emergency services from eastern states and territories have visited Perth. Obviously, for some states whose IT systems are not exactly compatible with those of the Western Australian government, they would have some transfer and establishment costs. But I say again that the Western Australian government—the Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia—have offered State Alert without fee and with the standard operating procedures to all of their colleagues in the eastern states. Several are very keen to take it up, as you can imagine. They are facing a fire season imminently—in fact, it is already underway. In New South Wales only this last weekend there was a situation where fire events took place. Even if it eventuated that those using this system in this fire season and the coming fire seasons were to say, ‘It is not exactly what we wanted,’ or, ‘We need modifications or changes,’ one would have thought at least it would be embraced for this fire season. It is a web based system. I watched it being demonstrated last week with a group of colleagues. The chief of operations for the Fire and Emergency Services Authority simply used an external modem. It can be driven from anywhere a person has internet access via a modem. We all saw this circumstance. We had to feed mobile numbers in and we watched within a matter of minutes a test alert going out.

What is integral to the process is the Integrated Public Number Database, which is a highly confidential database of all of the phone numbers in Australia, including private lines and all of the mobiles that are registered. With the good grace of the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, commencing in October this will be made available on a trial basis to the emergency service in WA so that automatically all of the information for an area can be picked up over a secure line. We have been led to believe that, should that be successful through October, by mid-November this year the integrated public database of telephone numbers may be made available to the fire and emergency services. That is absolutely essential because it will be an automated system incorporating any numbers that change, are upgraded or whatever in a specific area. Even if a person decided they did not want their mobile number registered, they could say to their local fire or emergency organisation, ‘We want that mobile phone number added into the database so that if anything happens in the area in which we have an interest we will receive a message.’

It is important to understand this is not something just for bushfires. In the event of a toxic plume, for example, occurring in a residential area which might result from a truck rolling over, you can imagine the absolute value of an incident controller being able within minutes to alert everybody in the downwind area—two to three thousand homes—of the fact that there is a toxic plume, that windows should be closed and air conditioners turned off and that people should remain in position. Equally, if a child were taken from a shopping centre, Mr President, you could understand the value of being able very quickly in a web based system to identify all of the residences and all of the businesses in a discrete area and of sending out a message saying what had happened with the child’s description and saying they should alert the emergency or police authorities if they see the child. It would also be valuable in the event of a tsunami, a cyclone or particularly the flood surge following a cyclone.

This is a system that is ready and available and can be picked up by the states and territories at this moment, subject to the department being able to release the Integrated Public Number Database over a secure line. I urge other states to pick State Alert up because we have seen in the last few years a community of people less able to make their own decisions. We have seen in the bushfire-prone areas of Victoria, in the hinterland of Canberra and outside all major cities people for whatever reason either being delayed or not understanding and not making decisions to protect themselves and their families. My plea is that this is just another tool. It does not replace the ABC radio alert. It does not replace the fire brigade and whatever messages they might put out, and it does not replace the time-honoured system of neighbours looking after neighbours. What it does is add one more element. I have been asked, ‘What happens if a mobile phone tower burns down and you cannot then send the message?’ The answer is simple: that message goes out a long time in advance of a fire getting anywhere near a mobile tower being burnt down. With new technologies being able to predict the direction of a fire or a toxic plume, that is obviated. I urge all states and territories to take it on board and to adopt it.