Tuesday, 9 December 2025

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (17:21): (1487) My adjournment this evening is to the Minister for Emergency Services, and the action I seek is to be given a full list of the outstanding requests from the emergency services outlets right across Polwarth – SES, CFA, surf lifesaving clubs and others – that are still waiting for essential equipment and services for their brigades, for their services and for their surf clubs. As we reach this summer holiday period in the electorate of Polwarth, the Great Ocean Road region will be inundated with tens of thousands of visitors, whose lives will be changed forever, for many of them, by adverse events, whether it is a wildfire, a terrible accident down at the beach or a car accident. All manner of tragedies, sadly, will occur in Polwarth over the coming months, and it will be the volunteers who respond – it will be the SES volunteers, it will be the CFA volunteers, it will be the surf club volunteers in particular and it will be even our volunteer ambulance drivers that we have looking after some parts of the Polwarth electorate. It is a huge commitment from an amazing cohort of locals that will step up every time. At every opportunity when someone’s life is at risk or in danger, they will be there to look after our community.

What concerns so many of these volunteers is that often they are waiting for simple things. I received a letter only this past week from one of my brigades. All they want is a $1500 thermal imaging detector for when they get a hay and silage fire, and we will possibly have some of those – as there has been a pretty good hay and silage season this year, that will possibly happen. On that one little device, at $1500, it is not the money so much as the evidence that says to that community and to those volunteers that this government values the endless time, effort and energy that they put into keeping people safe. It might be a new motor for one of the rubber duckies down at one of the many surf clubs in Polwarth – Torquay all the way through to Port Campbell. These are just simple things. Unfortunately for the emergency services volunteers right across Polwarth, they find themselves having to wait far too long for some basic equipment and services. Minister, not only is it really important that I be kept abreast of what the outstanding requests are from my community, but it is also vital for the community to understand where they sit in the pecking order. How much longer will the Yeodene CFA have to wait before they get a vital piece of equipment for the thermal imaging, for example? And many of the other groups and services have the same issue.