Mr BYRNE (10:49 PM) —One of the great privileges of being a member of parliament is that you have the opportunity to go to community based organisations and organisations that make substantial differences to people’s lives—in fact, save people’s lives. On Sunday last week, 6 November, I was honoured to attend the Hallam fire brigade open day. This is a very important facility that is based in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The background to the station is that originally the Doveton fire brigade was located in Doveton; it shifted to Hallam about a year ago. It is an integrated station, which means it is a combination of paid staff and volunteers. In fact, it has 25 paid staff and 30 volunteers, and it also has a junior brigade component and auxilliary. This station is located in the heart of a growth belt corridor. The brigade had been called to attend over 1,700 call-outs in a year. It is one of the busiest brigades in the state.

On Sunday, on a very fine day, they invited people from the community to attend this fire brigade and understand a bit more about what they do. I am pleased to report to this place that over 500 people attended from the community. What they saw was a children’s smoke house, which is a structure which teaches children to, in the event of fire, crawl at fairly low levels to escape the smoke; and fire safety in the home displays. We were shown appliances on-site which included the Hallam CFA pumper, a tanker, a support vehicle, a spare state teleboom and the Dandenong CFA rescue vehicle.

There is also a hazmat vehicle. This vehicle, which is 20 years old, would be called in the event of a chemical, biological or radiological attack to be one of the front-line services that would be used to decontaminate and to assess what was actually going on in the event of, say, a terrorist incident or some event of that nature. It takes very special people to be attending and servicing those sorts of accidents. But also required in this set of circumstances is the most up-to-date vehicle available. Unfortunately, the hazmat vehicle at the Hallam CFA does need upgrading. I was very pleased to see that the state Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Tim Holding, attended this particular brigade open day. This matter was drawn to his attention. I am also happy to report that I and his office will be looking into this particular matter. When you ask people to put their lives on the line to protect the community, they deserve the best equipment and they deserve the best support from governments. I am going to make sure that they actually get it, particularly with respect to this vehicle.

I was shown a trench rescue display by Fire Officer Greg ‘Chappy’ Chapman. While that sounds very simple, in actual fact it is not. I was shown the situation of a gravedigger caught in a grave, and what had to happen to extract that particular individual was quite astounding. A heck of a lot of work goes into that. I was also shown by brigade volunteers a full decontamination zone exercise, which is undertaken in the event of a biological, chemical or radiological attack. Given that it was a 30-degree day and that these volunteers were out in the open for some period of time, it was a great effort on their part. It showed the amount of work and equipment necessary, regarding the suits and the breathing apparatus officers are required to put on—and these pieces of equipment are not light.

I would particularly thank the officer in charge, Cliff O’Connor; 1st Lieutenant Lee Austin; 2nd Lieutenant David Miller; 3rd Lieutenant Michael Tiberi; the president, Arthur McMullan; the secretary, Max Raeburn; Fire Officer Michael Lia and the C Shift, in particular, for allowing me to take part; Denis Vlug, who was in the gas suit and the breathing apparatus; and Ashley Lovett, who was in the splash suit and the breathing apparatus also.

It was a great honour to be amongst people, as I have said, who put their lives on the line for our community to make it safe and to save lives. The Hallam fire brigade is a great example of an organisation that contributes to and benefits our community. I certainly hope that they have the best equipment required; and, as the federal member who represents that area, I will be doing all I can to make sure of that. As I have said, these people put their lives on the line; they deserve the best because they are the best.