Wednesday, 9 February 2022

State Emergency Service Whittlesea unit

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (19:23): (6205) The adjournment matter that I would like to raise this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Emergency Services, Jaclyn Symes, in the Legislative Council. The action I seek is for the minister to visit the fabulous Whittlesea SES unit in Schotters Road, Mernda. I would really like for her to see the fantastic work that these volunteers do 24/7, 365 days a year. They are still one of the newest units in the state. I was privileged to be the Parliamentary Secretary for Police and Emergency Services when the then minister, Bob Cameron—I know you are very aware, Deputy Speaker, of the former member for Bendigo West—officially opened the Whittlesea SES unit in Schotters Road, Mernda.

Gary Doorbar, which is a perfect name I think for an SES unit controller, is a recipient of the national Emergency Services Medal. I want to congratulate him and another member, who have recently undertaken training with Ambulance Victoria so that they can back up Ambulance Victoria if they are short while fighting the pandemic. I want to congratulate the unit as well. They have just done a sterling effort, particularly over the last year. With the impact of La Niña there have been so many storms and flood events. In late October I think the unit received about 120 requests for assistance in one night. They have been involved in rescues locally in the Plenty Gorge. They work with the other fire brigades in the area, all other units and Victoria Police. That horrific murder in Mill Park only a couple of weeks ago that we are all really very shattered about—VICSES were asked to back up, and what a difficult job that would have been. There was the beautiful find of a little boy on Mount Disappointment about two years ago who was lost there.

Those volunteers are there all the time to help our community, but despite the unit being a new unit, because of the number of volunteers their turnout area is now not quite big enough. Their meeting room is not big enough for all volunteers. There are many people who would like to join, and the unit is not actually able to have them join. They have got a waiting list. So I think it is really important that the minister sees it firsthand, congratulates the unit on the great work they do, being such a new unit—the rescues, the road accident rescues, the flood and storm responses—and just takes a look and works with SES to see how we can expand the unit to support the volunteers.