[Peetwo]

ASA ARFFS inquiry - Episode II: Hansard...

Maybe it has to do with having time on their hands but with both hearings into this inquiry the APH Hansard crew have collated and published within hours the transcripts of the public hearing - choccy frogs all round to the Hansard team...  

Extract from opening statement from Mr Buss (quite appropriate name really -   ) CEO City of West Torrens, plus follow on questioning/comments from Committee:

Mr Buss :...My council first became aware of the proposal by Airservices Australia to reduce aviation rescue and firefighting staffing numbers at Adelaide Airport in January this year. At its meeting on 15 January the council resolved that I write to the Hon. Michael McCormack MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, expressing council's concerns about the proposal to change staffing numbers at Adelaide Airport. Council's main concern was that any reduction in personnel hours to downgrade the emergency response cover could jeopardise the ability of rescue and firefighting personnel to deal with emergencies and security threats at Adelaide Airport. This in turn not only has potential to present a risk to those present and in attendance at the airport itself; it also has potential to present a risk to those members of our community who reside in proximity to the airport.

It is council's understanding that, currently, during the overnight curfew period, Adelaide Airport has an aviation rescue and firefighting crew operating 24/7 in accordance with CASA regulations. The airport is safeguarded by a dedicated crew of five staff able to deploy one aviation emergency response vehicle within three minutes to any point of the airport. It is also council's understanding that Airservices is fully funded to continue to maintain existing staff levels of its aviation rescue and firefighting crew but is considering changes in the name of saving money. Being prudent with public funds is in all our interests; however, that endeavour should not take precedent over public safety.

In response to what council wrote to the minister, Minister McCormack stated: 'I assure you that safety remains the principal focus of Airservices' considerations.' Council, on behalf of its community and those persons present at the airport site during the curfew period, value that comment from the minister and trust that Airservices Australia place the primary focus of safety front of mind as they review their Airservices staffing profile at Adelaide Airport—well above any cost-saving measures.

I personally am not across the implications of such a cut in staffing numbers at Adelaide Airport for those services, but it is not hard to realise that cuts of the magnitude proposed—around 40 per cent—will have implications for responses to aircraft incidents on the runway or taxiways, rescue and retrieval efforts during incidents, potential of critical airport infrastructure during an incident and responses to any high-level security incident on the airport. Minister McCormack in his response to council also stated, 'Under civil aviation safety regulations there is no requirement to provide any ARFFS coverage outside of the operating hours of passenger aircraft at Adelaide; however, reflecting its commitment to aviation safety, Airservices has enabled or elected to provide a category 5 level of service for many years and current staffing levels are above the minimum required for a category 5 service.' That noted—once again being respectful of the minister's comments—staffing levels at Adelaide Airport have been in place for some time now, and it would appear illogical for Airservices to reduce the current staffing levels as a cost-saving measure when at the same time Adelaide Airport is continuing to grow at an exceptional rate in terms of any number of measures you want to use, including aircraft movement, passenger numbers, freight payloads and non-airside business development. To the contrary, with all the growth occurring at Adelaide Airport, it would appear quite logical to argue for an increase in staffing levels to a higher category of service rather than having Airservices reduce staffing levels.

Council is aware that those professional personnel who provide the support and delivery of services at Adelaide Airport share concerns similar to council's about the proposed reduction in ARFF staff numbers. I therefore request that this Senate references committee takes on board the concerns expressed today, forms the view that any reduction in ARFF staffing numbers at Adelaide Airport is not warranted or justified and sends a clear message to Airservices Australia and Minister McCormack that it opposes any such reduction. Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr Buss. Mayor Coxon, did you wish to add anything?

Mayor Coxon : I would, and that is that my understanding is that the reduction in staffing numbers would then lead during the curfew period to having a firefighting response team of three. That would mean that they would only be able to act to defend an incident if it did occur. My concern would clearly be the safety of, firstly, anybody who might be in the aircraft and, secondly, the crew themselves. Even though they are instructed only to defend, they may feel obliged to take offensive action or to be creative in what they are doing. That would certainly be a threat to their own personal safety.

Notwithstanding that, I think the concern from the community is that there are 4,000 aircraft movements in and out of the airport every year during the curfew period. That is notwithstanding the odd breach by a significant passenger aircraft that does land or take off during the curfew period for various reasons. It has been made clear to me that in the event that they are defending a particular event they are totally reliant on the response of the Metropolitan Fire Service to a potential issue. That response time would mean, in the opinion of the firefighting crew, that it would be unlikely that anybody on board could survive that event. Those are my concerns and the concerns of the community. Furthermore, if an event did get out of control and the crew of three were unable to contain the event, what could that mean for the community living adjacent to the airport?

CHAIR: Thanks, Mayor Coxon. Before I hand over to my South Australian colleagues, I will say that this is an interesting issue that is gaining traction. Senator Gallacher and Senator Patrick have been following this through Senate estimates. I have to say on behalf of this committee that the behaviour of Airservices Australia never ceases to amaze me. I have been on the other side of the fence. I don't care who is in power, whether it be the current mob or my mob; when all is said and done, Airservices Australia—and they are listening—are a monopoly. They are very good at looking after their mates when it comes to doing payments through OneSKY and all sorts of things. Airservices Australia can take as much offence at that as they like, because they know my feelings. This is absolutely cost-cutting. The only people who I think have credibility in this argument are the firefighters themselves. Airservices Australia will no doubt have the opportunity to defend themselves against my accusations, but they know how I feel.

Senator GALLACHER: Mr Buss, could you table that opening statement. It was a very comprehensive opening statement. If you table it, it will allow us to read it without waiting for the Hansard to be produced. Thanks, Mayor Coxon, for your contribution. Some of us were around in 2005 when the Hon. John Howard opened this airport, and a marvellous facility it was. It's been a very tightly held, successful investment. As you pointed out, the development around it has grown exponentially. It just seems completely counterintuitive that Airservices Australia would be considering a reduction of aviation rescue and firefighting services in what's been 13 years of almost exponential growth. Do you want to put something on the record about that? We are sitting in a hotel that wasn't here two years ago.

Mayor Coxon : Whilst the City of West Torrens welcome the growth and entrepreneurship of the Adelaide Airport—we welcome the additional employment and the additional activity; it is putting South Australia and Adelaide, in particular, on the world stage and on the map—we certainly agree with your comment in relation to this proposal being counterintuitive. We see that there is definitely a very strong argument for actually increasing the complement to address those particular issues.

We feel that, when the general community hears the word 'curfew', its perception is that there is no activity at the airport between 11 pm and 6 am. That's what most people believe. Many people in the community are astounded to realise that there is in excess of 4,000 movements a year—that's on average over the past three years—in and out of the airport during that period of time. We know that all of the materials used around aircraft are highly flammable and that there is a very high risk to public safety not just at the airport but in the community at large. So I'd certainly support that.

Senator GALLACHER: You've raised your concerns with the Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon. Michael McCormack. Were you satisfied with his response or has it left some areas open?

Mr Buss : From my perspective, the response was just a general response. He thanked us for our letter and for expressing our concerns. I imagine that it may be one of the reasons why we have been invited to appear at this hearing. I think it was a general 'thanks but no thanks' type of response, indicating that the current level of service is category 5 and that that level is above what is required and, therefore, Airservices will review that. 

From our point of view we don't think the response was really satisfactory. As I said, it's counterintuitive in terms of the growth that this airport and no doubt other airports that are privatised in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and all around the country are going through at the moment. It just seems counterintuitive to reduce the firefighting capabilities and rescue capabilities of personnel on the site. This site is a critical piece of Commonwealth infrastructure. There are a lot of non-airside activities, like this hotel and harbour towns, that are also present which are not critical as such. But the airport itself is a critical piece of infrastructure for this country. It just seems odd that there would be a consideration of reducing firefighting and rescue services.

CHAIR: You're very kind, Mr Buss, when you say 'I don't want to say "stupid",' but anyway! - 

Senator GALLACHER: I want to go to the proposition that the SA Metropolitan Fire Service could assist. It always would assist in any event; no matter how many firefighters are at the airport, they would all pull in the same direction. But, logistically, what is your assessment of how long it would take for a response from the metropolitan firefighting service? They were to appear today but there's, unfortunately, been a death in the family.

Mayor Coxon : My understanding is that, in a best-case scenario, it would be five minutes from notification of the event to when they could potentially arrive at that event. In terms of highly flammable material, every second counts. I have some serious concerns about that.

Senator GALLACHER: That would assume that the crew has got keys and access to the airside areas and is trained and experienced at moving in that environment anyway. As you say, they do have 4,000-odd flights a year. 
 
Mayor Coxon : And hopefully they don't have other requirements on their personnel at that moment in time. One thing I would like to mention is that the Deputy Prime Minister, in his response letter, states, 'Under civil aviation safety regulations, there is no requirement to provide any ARFFS coverage outside of the operating hours of passenger aircraft at Adelaide.' I was absolutely floored to read that response. To me, that would indicate that the regulations really need to be reviewed. The reason I say that is that that's dealing with the perception that we have no aircraft outside of the operating hours of passenger aircraft. We have aircraft that come in and out of this airport during the curfew period courtesy of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. I would be really concerned that, should an event occur, we would be unable to proactively respond to an event that involved the Royal Flying Doctor Service, just as an example.

---

&..

Senator GALLACHER: Are you part of the committee that looks after emergency responses in the City of Adelaide, or is it just police, fire and government? If there were a major incident at this airport, in terms of an aircraft landing with a mechanical issue or some other issue, who coordinates that response? You look after the area around the airport, so I presume you'd be notified.

Mr Buss : That's correct. I can't give you the exact name for it but there is a coordinating group which involves state and local government personnel at levels for the various categories of response required. There are levels 1, 2 and 3, without going into all the details. We have personnel who sit on that. One of our general managers is the chair of the local government side of that response team. But when it escalates it elevates to an incident—it might be a category 3—that involves police and fire, local government it's really just an observer and a doer of the thing. The incident control is taken over by the police.

Senator GALLACHER: It might be something the committee needs to pursue, because this is about risk assessment. This is about trying to predict what the level of risk is into the future. I'm not competent to do that but there must be people who are. There must be people who assess the risks around the airport, frequency of airport, what we're trying to do and—I'm just not satisfied that Airservices is consulting as widely as it should. Did they directly consult with your council?

Mr Buss : Not on this issue, no.

Senator BROCKMAN: Do you know if it consulted with the consultative group—I'm sorry, I don't know if you gave it a name—that looks at overall safety in the area?

Mr Buss : The mayor and I attend the meetings. It hasn't been raised there. I do understand—

Senator BROCKMAN: Sorry, what is that group called?

Mr Buss : It's the Adelaide Airport Consultative Committee.

Senator BROCKMAN: So this issue has not been raised at the—

Mr Buss : Not that I'm aware of. I do understand that at the last meeting, which was in February, last month, an agenda item was put in for tabling to discuss this particular issue, but it wasn't actually listed.

Senator BROCKMAN: Is Airservices Australia a member of that group?

Mr Buss : Yes, they are.

Senator BROCKMAN: Do they regularly attend?

Mr Buss : Yes, they do.

Senator BROCKMAN: Who else is on that group—yourselves? The airport?

Mr Buss : It's the airport—it's a pretty wide-ranging group. There's everything from the airport operators to airline operators to community groups, resident groups, council—

Senator BROCKMAN: CASA?

Mr Buss : Yes, there's a report provided, in terms of Airservices. I'm not sure CASA are there. I don't believe so. The department of transport are—

Senator BROCKMAN: So it's been on the agenda but it's never actually been discussed?

Mr Buss : It was submitted to the chair for an agenda item, but—

Senator BROCKMAN: Do you know who submitted it?

Mr Buss : I believe it was the firefighters union.

Senator BROCKMAN: So the firefighters union is on that committee?

Mr Buss : No.

Senator BROCKMAN: So they've asked, but nobody else has asked, for it to be considered?

Mr Buss : We only became aware of it in January this year, that it was being considered. We only heard about it through one of our elected members.

Senator BROCKMAN: Following your letter to the Deputy Prime Minister, have you had any contact with Airservices Australia?

Mr Buss : No, we haven't.

Senator BROCKMAN: So the only forum where you would have that chance, formally, would be at that particular meeting.

Mr Buss : It would be or—

Senator BROCKMAN: Is there another forum where you'd both be around the table?

Mr Buss : No, there's not.

Senator BROCKMAN: When is that expected to convene next? Is it once a year or every couple of months or—

Mr Buss : No, they're quarterly meetings. The next one will be in May of this year.

CHAIR: Mr Buss or Mayor Coxon, have you, as the council, written to Airservices to say, 'Hey, we want to talk about this'?

Mr Buss : No. We've written to the minister who is responsible for Airservices. We believe that's a better approach.

CHAIR: Okay. I'll make it easier for you by reading—firstly, are you happy to make these public?

Mr Buss : Yes.

CHAIR: Thank you. Firstly, I will read the response of the minister. We all know how that works. That's just come from the hand of Airservices, so I wouldn't waste any more time there. But I absolutely encourage you to contact Airservices. You should do that, and Airservices should be here talking to you. It aggrieves me that it has been raised. We'll ask the UFU how this is done, but it's been raised as an agenda item on the Adelaide Airport Consultative Committee. I have no doubt that Adelaide Airport are the ones that decide the agenda. Is that correct?

Mr Buss : They have an independent chair.

CHAIR: 'Independent' is a really tricky word. What's an independent chair? I don't think anyone's independent if the buggers are paying them to do it.

Mr Buss : Well, that's correct. It's an independent chair, but the chair is appointed by the airport itself.

CHAIR: Okay. Who's the chair?

Mr Buss : A gentleman by the name of Russell Synnot.

CHAIR: What is Mr Synnot's background? Do you know? Obviously you're on that consultative committee.

Mr Buss : Yes. Mr Synnot has been the chair of the committee for a number of years. He's a consultant. He resides in Melbourne and operates out of Melbourne, so he comes into Adelaide.

CHAIR: But is he an aviation expert? Do you know his background?

Mr Buss : I'm not sure.

CHAIR: So Mr Synnot would be the one that determines what goes on the agenda? Would that be right—the independent chair paid by Adelaide Airport?

Mr Buss : That's my understanding, yes.

CHAIR: Okay. It would be interesting to find out a little bit more about Mr Synnot. So it just fell off the agenda. There was no discussion about it. When's the next meeting of the Adelaide Airport Consultative Committee.

Mr Buss : It's in May. It's quarterly. We had one in February, and then it's March, April, May.

CHAIR: It would be very interesting. Is anyone going to put it back on the agenda that you know of?

Mr Buss : We'll certainly be raising it, for sure.

CHAIR: That would be great. It would be interesting to hear how that goes. I can't help but think: why isn't Adelaide Airport represented here? I know you can't answer that...

And once again from the UFU:

CHAIR: Welcome. The committee has agreed to accept your submission and make it public on the committee's webpage. The committee notes that your submission makes a number of observations regarding the performance of Airservices Australia. The committee will therefore offer Airservices the right of reply to the claims made in your submission. Do you wish to make an opening statement, Mr von Nida, or anyone else?

Mr von Nida : Yes, thanks. First of all, the union would like to thank senators for hearing our submission. I hope everyone accepts it in the spirit that it is meant, which is the safety of the travelling public and the safety of our people. We'd also like to thank the minister for stepping in and stopping that 500,000 review that the department was trying to put in. Going to 500,000 from 350,000 would've meant quite a significant number of airports closing—

CHAIR: Sorry, Mr von Nida; just explain what 500,000 to 350,000 actually means.

Mr von Nida : That's the criteria for ARFF to be established. So the department of transport was actually going down the path of trying to make it a 500,000 establishment criterion and a 400,000 withdrawal criterion. That would've seriously affected a lot of regional centres and basically shut down fire stations all over the place.

That for us is a big issue. When you look around the world, you've got the UK, where every certified airport has an ARFF service of some type. In the US, anything with 12 seats and above has a fire service. If you look at New Zealand, for 30 seats and above there's a fire service. In Canada, get more than 180,000 passengers through the gate and you get a fire service. Here in Australia it was 350,000, and they were trying to make it 500,000. To us, the risk is quite clear. We've signed up to the treaty under ICAO, the Chicago convention, that says that we will provide a proper service, as per ICAO. To go to 500,000 as a trigger limit makes a bit of a lie of us complying with ICAO.

I was in the service for 28 years. I worked at rural stations. I started in Mount Isa and moved to Brisbane. I went to Alice Springs and did a term there as an officer. I went to Mackay and ran that as the boss. I went to Perth and ran Perth station as the fire station manager. I ran Sydney for six years. I became a chief superintendent for a while and then moved into running Brisbane before I finally resigned. I have had a fair bit of experience in this field, and what I have noticed over the last couple of years is a steady decline where Airservices just keeps going to a minimal standard instead of the full thing.

If you look at places like Heathrow, Brussels, Changi and Dallas Fort Worth, they showcase their airport emergency services: 'Look at this. Look at what we're doing. We've got all this really good high-tech equipment. We've got all these highly trained people if something goes wrong.' That's the sort of model that you look at and think you could be proud of—whereas here in Australia we're just ticking the box. Even when we can't tick the box we go to CASA and say, 'Can I get an exemption,' and CASA just hands them out.

I think, when we were listening to the Melbourne hearing, Senator Gallacher talked about all the different standards in the MOS, asking, 'Do you still apply this? Do you still apply that?' And, when you got to about seven, CASA was going, 'Um, I don't think so.'

That's the reason we've had this steady decline over the last couple of years to the minimalist model that they use.

I think that's why we're here. It's nothing personal against anybody or anything. We just want a fire service we can be proud of.

Aviation fire service is in 26 different locations and has over 850 uniformed staff. We're a national fire service and we're really proud of our fire service.

CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Horton or Mr Skelton, do you wish to add any other comments?

Mr Horton : No, sir.

CHAIR: The truth of the matter is, Mr von Nida, that we shouldn't even be here. It is absolutely ridiculous that at a money-making machine like Airservices Australia, which has no competition, which is a monopoly, which is very good at rewarding its own people, some peanut might get up in the morning and have a brain snap and think, 'How many jobs can I get rid of in terms of firefighting?' Jeez. Who wants to open the batting? I've had a gutful of Airservices at the best of times. - 

Senator GALLACHER: To put your opening remarks into perspective, Mr von Nida: it is probably not widely known in Australia that there is a passenger limit, that you have to have 350,000 passengers before you get aviation rescue and fire response on site. There was a proposal to move that to 500,000, and thankfully that's not been taken up. But the other side of it is that the growth in Australian airports is exponential, particularly in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. I think Sydney has over 50 million passengers, Melbourne has over 40 million and Brisbane has 30 million. In that environment, you would actually think that the firefighting service would be taking the models that you've pointed to—Dallas, Fort Worth, Brussels and the like—rather than there being allegations that we even exempt Australian-standard hoses from being used. What's happening in our airports seems really counterintuitive. Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne is one of the busiest air routes in the world. You would think we would be the exemplar in provision of firefighting services. Your organisation is saying that that's not the case. Some of the evidence that CASA has given indicates that that's absolutely true. Can you expand on why you think that is happening?

Mr von Nida : I think as a union we look at what's happened with OneSKY and the amount of money—$1 billion—poured into that project. Within Airservices, firefighters have traditionally been the poor cousins. It's all about air traffic control. The model that's set up is an air navigation service provider. If you look at any other air navigation service provider, they don't have a fire service, especially not a big traditional fire service, sitting underneath them. We think maybe it's a problem that the model is broken. It made a lot of sense back in the fifties, when the local fire services were fairly ad hoc. You probably couldn't trust what was in place at that time to provide you with an ICAO-compliant service, so the Department of Civil Aviation took it on, and a very significant fire service grew up out of that. Those times have changed. We're no longer a government department. Airservices is trying very hard to be a business. Basically I don't know how a fire service fits into a business as such. If you want to be a good service, you're not a business. If you want to be a business, you're not going to be a good service.

Senator GALLACHER: They will say that 96 per cent of Australian passengers are covered by ARFF. The flipside of that is that there are eight-odd million passengers who are not covered by any firefighting service at all. We know that even the achievement of the 350,000 hasn't resulted in the immediate provision of firefighting services. I think Proserpine has over 400,000. There seems to be a lag in even applying their own definitions, particularly in applying the CASA regulations, which is extremely concerning. Do you want to put something on the record about that?

Mr von Nida : I think what's happened, especially in my time when I was the chief superintendent and part of their executive group, is that they were putting a lot of eggs in one basket—the 500,000 basket—thinking, 'We won't have to put a fire service there if 500,000 comes in.' They did the same thing with the fire replacement five project, where we had to buy brand-new fire service vehicles to fill up Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and those sorts of areas, which would allow other tenders to go out to the new regionals. But I think they put all their eggs in that one basket of, 'We're going to get 500,000 across the line,' and now they've been caught short.

Senator GALLACHER: Let's go back to Adelaide Airport. What does it actually mean to the ability to service an aircraft, from an ARFF perspective, with the reduction of staff in the curfew hours here? Can you explain the defend and the proper function, as you would see it? Can you put that on the record?

Mr von Nida : I think basically every fire service in the world has accepted that a two-in two-out principle is the only way a minimum fire service can work. You have to have an officer and three firefighters on the truck, as a minimum. Every urban vehicle has that if they're a pumper. Some rescue trucks have less than that, but they're trucks for a special purpose. So, if you want to be a pumper and you want to be safe, you've got to have two outside who can go in and rescue the two inside if they run into trouble. That's the minimum, and it's accepted. If you look at America, there are lots of studies saying that seven is the safest number. In fact, if you go into a normal house fire, you should have at least seven firefighters to handle the job safely. Australia doesn't comply with that, but there is a lot of science behind why that is the safest model.

When we go to an aircraft, basically our job is to turn out and the objective is a two-minute response time. Airservices disregard that and say three minutes is the maximum, so we'll go for three minutes. What happens is you have a major fire, and, because it's a fuel-based fire, it gets away. With an extra minute of burning, a fire grows exponentially; that extra minute is really critical in an ARFF sense, especially when an A380 has 310,000 litres on board. Basically, we get there and we have 90 seconds to control the external part of the fire, so we attack it with our monitors. We have two sets of monitors: a primary monitor and a bumper monitor. We go in and we have pump rolls. We roll to the side of the aircraft and we extinguish all the fire as we go. We then reposition at the front of the aircraft and we start running hose branches. We put out any deep-seated fires. Once we've got control of that external environment, then we make entry. We should make entry within five minutes; that's what the ARFF's requirement working group for ICAO says and that's what NFPA says. That's when we make entry. The reason for that is that all the fire safety of the internal fittings of an aircraft are predicated around five minutes. They survive for five minutes of fire exposure and then they break down, and then they contribute to the fire. They're the reasons why you need to get in there quickly, but, if you only have three staff, you're going to have to take the risk.

In a situation here in Adelaide, a Learjet came in with a private passenger who was a patient—they were bedridden—a doctor and a nurse, and the pilots on board. It left one of its tyres on the Darwin runway, came here and landed basically on the hub. Bits of the hub broke off and penetrated the fuselage and the wing. They were very lucky that that didn't turn into a fireball. If we had only three staff there, we probably could have got the external fire out. But then we would have had to try to make entry and save the people inside. We can't sit around waiting for the urban brigade to show up...etc..etc

    
MTF...P2