legal affairs & community safety committee public hearing transcript 24 feb 2016

8/20/2019 Legal Affairs & Community Safety Committee Public Hearing Transcript 24 Feb 2016

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This is an uncorrected proof of evidence takenbefore the committee and it is made availableunder the condition it is recognised as such.

LEGAL AFFAIRS AND COMMUNITYSAFETY COMMITTEE

Members present:

Mr ML Furner MP (Chair)Miss V M Barton MPMr DJ Brown MPMr JM Krause MPMs JE Pease MP

Mrs T Smith MP

Staff present:

Ms B Watson (Research Director) Ms K Longworth (Principal Research Officer)Mr G Thomson (Principal Research Officer)

PUBLIC HEARING—INQUIRY INTO THE FIRE AND

EMERGENCY SERVICES (SMOKE ALARMS) AMENDMENT BILL 2015

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

WEDNESDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 2014

Brisbane


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Public Hearing—Inquiry into the Fire and Emergency Services (Smoke Alarms) Amendment Bill2015

Brisbane - 1 - 24 Feb 2016

001

WEDNESDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 2016 ____________

Committee met at 9.03 am

CHAIR: Good morning. I declare open this public hearing and public briefing for thecommittee’s inquiry into the Fire and Emergency Services (Smoke Alarms) Amendment Bill 2015. On1 December 2015 Mr Jarrod Bleijie, the member for Kawana, introduced the bill to the parliament.The parliament has referred the bill to its bipartisan Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee— this committee—for examination. My name is Mark Furner. I am the chair of the committee. Othercommittee members are Mr Jon Krause, deputy chair of the committee; Mrs Tarnya Smith; Ms JoanPease; Miss Verity Barton; and Mr Don Brown.

The committee’s proceedings are proceedings of the Queensland parliament and are subjectto the standing rules and orders of the parliament. The proceedings are being recorded by Hansardand broadcast live on the parliament’s internet site. Media may be present and will be subject to the

chair’s direction at all times. The media rules endorsed by the committee are available from committeestaff if required. All those present today should note that it is possible you might be filmed orphotographed during the proceedings. I ask everyone present to turn off your mobiles or switch themto silent. Only the committee and invited witnesses may participate in the proceedings. Asparliamentary proceedings under the standing orders, any person may be excluded from the hearingat the discretion of the chair or by order of the committee.

The purpose of today is to assist the committee with its examination of the Fire and EmergencyServices (Smoke Alarms) Amendment Bill 2015 introduced as a private member’s bill by the memberfor Kawana, the shadow minister for police, fire, emergency services and corrective services. Thegovernment has now introduced its own bill in relation to domestic smoke alarms and it has beenreferred to this committee. We will be considering the bill and report on it by 23 May 2016.

We understand from the bill’s explanatory notes and the member’s introductory speech that

the bill aims to introduce a number of legislative changes to implement recommendations from thecoronial inquest into the Slacks Creek house fire that occurred in August 2011, claiming the lives of11 people including eight children. A number of stakeholders, most of whom have written submissionsto our inquiry, have been invited to participate in the hearing. The program for today has beenpublished on the committee’s webpage and there are hard copies available from committee staff.

ISAAC, Mr David, Fire and Safety Technologies Pty Ltd

VEENSTRA, Mr Gary, State Manager, Master Electricians Australia

CHAIR: Thank you for your written submissions and for attending here today. We will allowyou five minutes each to make an opening statement—and I will strictly stick to five minutes—andthen committee members will have some questions for you. Before you start, I seek leave to table the

government’s Fire and Emergency Services (Domestic Smoke Alarms) Amendment Bill 2016. Therebeing no opposition, it is carried. Mr Isaac, we will start with you, please.

Mr Isaac: Thank you very much for inviting me to speak this morning, ladies and gentlemen. Iguess I could speak for a lot more than five minutes, but I will try to keep it way less than that so thatyou can ask whatever questions you would like to ask. I want to open with a statement that was madeby the Commissioner of the New South Wales fire brigade, Greg Mullins, in the Senate inquiry thatwe attended late last year. In his statement he says these words—

The other thing people need to be aware of is that a smouldering fire is more lethal than a flaming fire. There is a qualificationthere. A flaming fire will spread quickly and conditions will become untenable very quickly. But most fires in residential settingswill go through a smouldering phase before they become a flaming fire. If you can detect that quickly, people have the abilityto escape.

He continues—

That is in a nutshell, and the last thing is, even with a flaming fire, a phenomenon scientists call ‘smoke ageing’ and ‘smoketravels’. With smoke travels, the small particles tend to congregate—


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or what we call agglomerate—

and become larger particles. Research we have just recently conducted in New South Wales found that photoelectric alarmsoperated far more quickly than ionisation alarms for smouldering fires—sometimes tens of minutes, sometimes half an hour,sooner. In a flaming fire, ionisation alarms sometimes operated more quickly than a photoelectric alarm but the difference wasseconds. We very clearly advocate only photoelectric alarms. My personal view is: ionisation alarms should be banned.

That is a pretty powerful statement coming from a commissioner who was a career fireman—

the first New South Wales commissioner who started as a fireman as a young man. In my submissionI put that the most dangerous fires are those that occur at night when occupants sleep, between 8 pmand 8 am. It is imperative to have multiple alarms. It is no good having a smoke alarm in a homedown the end of the corridor when you are asleep at the other end of the house in a bedroom and thesmoke will not reach that smoke alarm. Particularly if that smoke alarm is an ionisation one, by thetime it reaches that ionisation alarm the smoke particle size is too large for it to activate. They mustbe of the photoelectric type.

We also know from research done by the Victorian University of Technology that the wakingeffectiveness of smoking alarms is entirely determined by the ability to interconnect or hear the alarmat the bed head level and so we strongly advocate interconnection. The other thing is that there wouldbe a huge cost impost on the community to require hardwired smoke alarms, particularly on the builtenvironment. Technology has gone in quantum leaps forward today, with 10-year lithium powered

smoke alarms that are very effective. They are no less effective than mains powered smoke alarms.In fact, some will argue, myself included, and some of the manufacturers will argue that they are morereliable because they are not subject to spikes in the mains power supply that can in fact disable amains powered smoke alarm. Obviously the timing of the legislation is critical and how we introduceit in terms of a cost-benefit basis, and I understand the constraints that governments have in terms ofcost of implication of new legislation. I would like to say that I have since—obviously last night, to oursurprise—found out that the government has put forward another amendment to the bill whichbasically enhances the bill before this committee, so you guys started out on the right track and didthe right thing.

CHAIR: Sorry, Mr Isaac, but it is not an amendment; it is a separate bill.

Mr Isaac: Okay. So there is a separate bill which has come out which basically endorses whatthis bill does but takes it one stage further with interconnection, and I would endorse that. The parties,particularly Labor and Liberal, need to work in a bipartisan manner to achieve whatever means wecan to get this change through to the smoke alarm legislation. Thank you.

Mr Veenstra: Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment on the bill. MasterElectricians is the leading industry body and voice for electrical contractors not only in Queenslandbut also in Australia. We started here in 1937. We looked at it from the point of the electrical standardsand our knowledge of the standards that electrical contractors have to work to. We were obviouslyconcerned that it is about non-operable smoke alarms in the house. From our point of view, theterminology should be ‘working smoke alarms’ because we have seen much evidence of alarms withbatteries removed or completely removed or not being tested.

Looking at the standards from where our contractors look at it, in the standard they still speakabout both alarms and our concern was that was one alarm better than the other? We will bow to theexperts who actually say that one is better than the other, but we know that photoelectrics are forsmouldering type fires, and obviously the smouldering fires do affect and asphyxiate people very

quickly before they have a chance to get out. The information we had was that ionisation were bestfor flaming, so we were saying wouldn’t both be better than just one, and there are combination unitsthat have both in them? But, again, we will bow to the experts on that.

There are many sorts of alarms. There are also heat alarms, there are hearing impaired alarmsand there are carbon monoxide alarms. So you can put many into an installation that can berecommendations. We actively sought the path of hardwired with the 10-year battery backup, whetherthat is a lithium or another battery that will come in the future because, as we know, battery technologyis changing. We believe that would be much better than a battery-only smoke alarm, only because ofthe evidence that we have seen and personally myself in a tenanted property and from our electricalcontractors—that is, they go to the houses and the batteries have been removed. So with sealable,tamper-proof batteries that will be fine. You must not be able to not remove it. How far do they go if itkeeps alarming? Do they pull it off the ceiling? We cannot comment on that.

The other issue that we see coming out of that is that our priorities are electrical safety and wehave been advocating electrical safety in many areas. The home insulation scheme obviously has aneffect on fire as well, as does the solar scheme because we know that over 200 roof fires have come


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from that. Then there are non-conforming products, and I am on the non-conforming productcommittee—that is, looking at faulty products from cables to even the iPhone chargers to hoverboardsto every product that is being imported. The fact is that we see the effect of all of this. We havestandards, regulations and legislation and they need to be modified and adjusted. There is thencompliance of manufacturers, importers, suppliers, installers, home owners, landlords and tenants.There is not any inspection or policing of this anymore to see that they all comply. Anyone can bring

a product in and supply a document, as with the hoverboard case which caused fires but did notcomply.

There is then the maintenance. We know absolutely that people do not maintain their house.They maintain their car. They will spend hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dollars a yearon maintaining their car, but when it comes to maintaining their house there seems to be an issue inthat. Even when our members suggest it, they view it as the member trying to extort them of money,and I guess that is an education program. We used to have a lot of education programs floatingaround about testing of safety switches and testing of smoke alarms—and continually, not just doingit once but every rates notice, every electricity bill or whatever. We keep reinforcing it with thetelevision, which everyone watches, and the media.

I guess overriding that is, obviously, the almighty dollar and what people want to pay and whatpeople do not want to pay and what the industry wants to charge. I went on the website yesterday

and looked at a hardware shop that is still advertising a nine-volt ionisation for $9.98 battery only.Knowing electrical products as we do, you get what you pay for. We cannot believe that a $9.98smoke alarm meets all the requirements of the standard and testing and everything that has to bedone to make sure that it actually works. That would apply, obviously, to a photoelectric. If it is verycheap, it is cheap. So they are our concerns.

CHAIR: Okay, thank you. The bill that we are discussing today, which is the private member’sbill from the opposition, refers to compliance with Australian Standard 3786 of 1993. However, it doesnot refer to the recent superseded Australian Standard 3785 of 2014. Are either of you familiar withthose standards at all and why it would reference only the inferior standard?

Mr Isaac: I think it is a typo, what you are referring to: 3786:1993 was the smoke alarmstandard in Australia prior to 2014. From 1993 to 2014 it had four amendments. It is the traditionalsmoke alarm standard that we know. I am a member of the Australian standards committee that wrote

those standards. In 2014 we adopted the international standard, which was amended for Australiaand published in 2014 still of the same name, AS3786:2014. It was called up in the BCA in May lastyear. So in 2015 the 2014 standard became part of the legislation.

Smoke alarms can comply with either of those two standards. Essentially, the standards arethe same. The test fires that the alarm is tested to are different. The later 2014 standard uses the ISOtest fires, or the European test fires, which is a series of test fires, whereas the previous version, the1993 version, used an Australian smouldering smoke test, which used masonite as a smoulderingmedia to check the effectiveness of the smoke alarm.

CHAIR: So does that result from the change of the furnishings and those sorts of things?

Mr Isaac: No, it did not really. It is just that there was an international standard. Australia, underthe World Trade Organisation, has an agreement to adopt international standards where they areapplicable for Australia. Most of the work that we do on product standards is look at the international

standard, which evolves from the European standard, the EN standard. We look at its suitability for Australia and we may publish it, adopt it as it is as an Australian standard, in which case it will becomean Australian Standard—AA/ISO and the number of the standard. If we need to do substantialmodifications or editing to the standard, it adopts the Australian Standard name, but it is basedfundamentally on the ISO standard.

CHAIR: You both appear to support the view of having a photoelectric interconnected alarms.I was wishing to hear your opinion on having the additional backup off. I think you, Mr Veenstra, madereference to power surges and the failure of that—

Mr Isaac: That was me.

CHAIR: —on the basis of further backup, of having the nine-volt lithium battery. Ideally, thatwould be the primary coverage—to have both interconnection and the nine-volt battery; would thatbe correct?

Mr Isaac: Yes, absolutely. There are basically three factors. The absolute priority is to havephotoelectric. The second priority is to have multiple photoelectrics and coupled with that they mustbe interconnected so that if any alarm activates it activates all of the other alarms. A 10-year lithium


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sealed alarm—they have a 10-year lithium battery which is sealed; that battery cannot be removed— is not a problem with photoelectric, because photoelectrics do not nuisance alarm to anywhere nearthe same extent that ionisation do.

One of the biggest community objections that you are going to get to the legislation—and itcomes, basically, from ignorance—is that they think, ‘My God, my smoke alarm goes off every time Icook the toast or I open the oven door. It is really not a smoke alarm; it is a toaster alarm. If Iinterconnect and I now have to have seven of these damn things, if Jimmy comes home at 10 o’clockat night and cooks toast he is going to wake up the whole household.’ The public have not beeneducated to understand the difference. If we mandate photoelectrics, the nuisance alarm rate willalmost disappear provided the alarms are installed correctly.

Mr KRAUSE: Mr Isaac, I take what you said about the nuisance rate of photovoltaic smokealarms—

Mr Isaac: Ionisation ones, yes.

Mr KRAUSE: Versus the ionisation ones.

Mr Isaac: The ionisation ones have a significant nuisance alarm rate. That is what Mr Veenstrais finding in the field in the majority of disconnections in our experience. There have been worldstudies done on this. In Australia we know that, for example, 30 per cent of ionisation smoke alarmsare disabled by the consumer within two years because of their propensity to be nuisance alarms.

Mr KRAUSE: What about the other ones?

Mr Isaac: No, they do not. Photoelectric will nuisance alarm with steam. I have seven in myown home. I have one in the kitchen within three metres of the cooktop and they are a fairlysophisticated radio interconnected smoke alarms. I have never had a false alarm in my home.

Mr KRAUSE: In your opening statement you said that there might have been a few secondsdifference between the reaction of an ionisation alarm and the photovoltaic alarm in relation to aflaming fire.

Mr Isaac: Yes.

Mr KRAUSE: Just a few seconds.

Mr Isaac: Yes, just a few seconds—10 seconds, maybe 20 seconds—and that depends. Thatis not even a fair statement, because an ionisation alarm will be effective only when it is in the room

of fire origin. So if the ionisation alarm is remote from the fire, it becomes less effective. But ironically,the reverse occurs for the photoelectric, because as the smoke particle size increases as it travelsaway from the fire, the photoelectric becomes more sensitive to the larger particle size and theionisation becomes desensitised to the particle size.

Mr KRAUSE: We have had one submission which urges us to have mandatory ionisation andphotovoltaic smoke alarms in houses, but it seems to me what you are saying is that that would addlittle, if any, further smoke fire protection.

Mr Isaac: It adds no benefit at all. In fact, I would argue and AFAC argue in their policystatement in June 2006—and if you do not know what AFAC are they are the Australasian Fire andEmergency Service Authorities Council, which represents all emergency services and fire brigadesacross Australia and New Zealand—that combination alarms added cost and were of no benefit. Also,when you add the ionisation component it will still false alarm. So the consumer will want to remove

the battery again, but when they remove the battery then they have lost all protection whatsoever.Mr KRAUSE: You recommend the installation of the nine-volt lithium batteries, lasting around

10 years.

Mr Isaac: Yes, yes.

Mr KRAUSE: Another submission that was put to us went to the point that the installation ofthose batteries, which last for a long time, might lead to a set-and-forget culture, where we should beencouraging people to check their smoke alarms regularly to make sure they are operational.

Mr Isaac: Yes.

Mr KRAUSE: Do you have a view about whether about these photovoltaic smoke alarms failover a 10-year period, because we do not want to lead people into a false sense of security here.

Mr Isaac: Just to start with, the standard requires that a smoke alarm has to be designed for10 years and should be replaced after 10 years. I note that one of the submissions—I cannot

remember whether it was this one or the one that was tabled yesterday—makes the replacement ofa smoke alarm legislatively compulsory after 10 years.


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The set-and-forget mentality, I think, is not one that has any real value applied to 10-year lithiumbatteries or to any other smoke alarm. Many of the mains powered smoke alarms have rechargeablebatteries in them—the ones that are installed today—and the battery stays permanently in the smokealarm. It keeps being recharged by the 240-volt power supply. So you never get a chirp warning youthat the battery needs to be replaced.

Set and forget is a problem with anything like this. You need to vacuum the smoke alarm at

least once every six months to a year to check that it has not been blocked with just debris from theatmosphere in the home. So we need to embark on a public education campaign.

Mr KRAUSE: I was just going to say that. It sounds like there is an awareness program waitingto be had.

Mr Isaac: Absolutely.

Mr BROWN: Thank you, gentlemen, for attending today. With the ionisation alarms, with thelithium battery for 10 years and the radio connection, do you need to have the hardwire option?

Mr Isaac: No. There are two ways of interconnecting smoke alarms. The old traditional waythat Gary and I are very familiar with that goes back in the early days was that the smoke alarms wereinterconnected with cabling. So smoke alarms were typically connected to light circuits in the houseand you had another wire that went between the two smoke alarms. It became problematic when youhad a house with an upstairs lighting circuit on one phase and the downstairs circuit on another phase.You could not then interconnect them. One of the great advantages of the modern smoke alarm isthat they can be a stand-alone stationed alarm connected to either mains or 10-year lithium poweredstand-alone and the interconnection is done with a radio frequency.

The good-quality smoke alarms have a separate radio module with their own battery in it. Forexample, one of the brands on the market has the little plug-in radio module. So if they are concernedabout cost, the consumer can purchase one alarm one month. The next month they might buy anotherand put a module in and connect the two together. Then the next month they can buy another andconnect that. The consumer can put that up himself. He does not need a licensed electrician to putin a 10-year lithium powered battery, if that makes sense.

Mr BROWN: Yes, it does. If you get the right alarm and you interconnect it with the right rooms,you are not losing any safety value?

Mr Isaac: No, you are adding significantly to safety value, because if you consider that you put

multiple alarms in a home—one in each bedroom, one in the hallway and one in the living area, so itis five alarms—and they are interconnected with a radio frequency, all the consumer has to do isliterally stick them on the ceiling, read the instructions, set the home code, tune them all into eachother, lock them and any one of those alarms activating will turn on all of your alarms in the home.

Mr BROWN: So with a unit complex or a body corporate, would that also benefit frominterlocking units as well?

Mr Isaac: We never interconnect units, because you would have a situation where an alarm inone apartment would then set off alarms in all the other apartments. In principle we do not do that.We treat that as a fire isolated sole-occupancy unit. So there is no need to do that. If a fire breaks outof the sole-occupancy unit into the public area in a unit complex there is a separate smoke alarm ordetection system in the public spaces that will call the brigade—or may not call the brigade, but it willat least activate the building warning system. We treat units only as separate sole-occupancy units.

Mrs SMITH: Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in today. I am interested in how you would seethis rolling out. As you said, there are so many different alarms on the market. I have lived in a coupleof homes. At the moment, I have the nine-volt battery but a previous resident wired it all through withalarms. As you pointed out, a lot of consumers out there, if they have the battery ones, once thebattery has run out they pull it out. I did not know that I should be vacuuming my smoke alarm. Froma cost point of view, how would you envisage this rolling out? I am just be interested in your thoughts.

Mr Isaac: I think education, explaining what the bills will mean when they are finally adoptedby government, is absolutely critical. Social media went berserk yesterday. I had the ability to talk toLouie Naumovski from the Logan House Fire Support Network on their Facebook page. Theresponses from the public clearly indicate that they do not understand and they have the concernsthat I mentioned before—‘My God, we’re now going to have seven that are going to nuisance alarminstead of one’—not understanding the difference between the technologies.

I commend the parliament and the opposition and the current government for moving in thisdirection. This is a quantum leap in the right direction. But we need people such as me whounderstand to write clear documents that the public can understand so that they know what therequirements are. The public are going to be concerned that they are going to have to get a licensed


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electrician in and they will not be able to afford it. Many people will not be able to afford to pay out$1,000 and have this done immediately. But with a bit of coaching they can understand it. As I said,they can buy one alarm at a time—one month, two months later, another. By the time the period ofthe legislation comes to its close they would have complied. So there are lots of things that they cando.

Yes, there are lots of types of smoke alarms on the market, but the legislation, from what I have

read, will clearly spell out the type of smoke alarm that they are allowed to use. With a new home, ithas to be hardwired battery backed. In an existing built environment, you can use lithium batterypowered or, if you want to go to the expense, you can hardwire them. So there is a lot of choice there.

The interconnection is a spectacular move forward and the multiple alarms is equally so. I justcompare that with a hotel, a hospital or a shopping centre. We have photoelectric smoke detectors.In this building, right above you there is a photoelectric analogue addressable smoke detector. Wehave that in every room in this building. Any one of those alarms activating will set off the buildingemergency warning system. We do this in commercial buildings. We do not kill anybody in commercialbuildings. With structural fires in commercial buildings, people do not die. Yet look at the statistics onresidential fires. It is horrendous. Yet we think that putting one smoke alarm in one spot in the house— typically remote from the most common fire source—is going to work. I do not understand that logic.I am an electrical engineer and it is completely illogical to even think that. It is tokenism. It is absolute

tokenism.CHAIR: Gentlemen, unfortunately we are out of time and I thank you for your attendance here

this morning. Thank you very much.

Mr Isaac: Thank you.


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TEMBY, Mr Warwick , Housing Industry Association

CHAIR: Good morning. We thank you for your attendance and for your submission. We inviteyou to make a five-minute opening statement and then we will have some questions from members.

Mr Temby: Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you for your welcome. Our submission is notquestioning in any way, shape or form the policy intent of this particular bill. Our concerns are

exclusively around the implementation of the intent and the avoidance of practical difficulties in theindustry with the implementation. Our biggest concern is around the interaction between the proposedbill and the Building Act and how that will impact on new home building in particular and whether weare not falling into a trap of setting up two sets of rules—one set of rules for new dwellings, particularlyin terms of where the devices are located and how they are connected, and a separate set of rulesfor established houses. For us, that is probably the biggest concern.

The current act makes it very clear by drawing on references to the Building Code of Australia— now called the National Construction Code, about what sorts of devices you have and where they areput. It is very clear. There is one set of rules and people know how they work. The current act workswell in that regard. My very quick look at the bill that was introduced yesterday suggests that thatmakes a better fist of sorting out those conflicts between the two bits of legislation than the bill we aretalking about here this morning.

In general, I think a lot of the content of the bill probably would be better located in regulationrather than in legislation. The previous gentlemen were talking about technological developments. Ilearnt this morning, for example, that you can interconnect smoke alarms wirelessly or without a pieceof cable somewhere. That technology was not there, as far as I am aware, five years ago. I think weneed to be designing this legislation for a longer time frame.

The Building Code of Australia is constantly updated. I think, particularly in terms of the locationof the devices, the Building Code has a lot more detail. While the language in the bill very muchreflects what the Building Code of Australia says today, you do not want to have to be coming backin two years, three years or six years time to adjust the legislation to reflect what is happening in theBuilding Code of Australia. I think it would be better to cross-reference to the Building Code of Australia rather than develop your own frame of words about technical issues such as where thesethings should be put in a separate piece of legislation. I think there is some potential for confusionthere.

There is also a lot more detail about location built into the Building Code. There are lots of nicediagrams, pictures, alternative solutions and those sorts of things which really are not possible to bedone in a piece of legislation. If the legislation is made more generic in that way, referring to otherbits of code and legislation and putting some things in legislation, even about the types of smokealarms, I think that should be prescribed in regulation rather than built into the legislation becausewho knows what is around the corner in terms of better systems of detecting smoke alarms. That isprobably the biggest issue.

In terms of implementation, we have had a lot to learn over the last couple of years from theinsulation program which was rolled out far too quickly. A much better model to work in terms ofphasing in those sorts of things is what a string of governments in Queensland have done with poolsafety legislation and pool-fencing legislation. The approach to how that has been phased and theeducation programs that have gone along with it I think is a very good example of what should and

can be done in this space, because we are talking about changing the smoke detection arrangementsin close to two million homes in Queensland. That is class 1 buildings that are there now. The otherthing to bear in mind is that at any one time eight or nine per cent of those dwellings are empty. Sowho takes responsibility? The owner is responsible but it is certainly not front of mind. There arepractical issues about implementation, but in a legislative sense our concern is predominantly aroundthe interaction with the Building Act.

CHAIR: I want to pick up on the point you made about the number of alarms. Your submissionrefers to an information sheet that you put out, I take it, to your members. It gives an example ofputting one in the hallway. I understand there is evidence, and I refer particularly to AustralianStandard 3786, which requires an emission of 85 decibels from a smoke alarm. No doubt the furtheraway from an alarm a person is—if you place an alarm, for example, in a hallway of a standard home,and the occupant closes the bedroom door—it could very well be reduced to the mid-30s and hencefail in respect to alarming a person of an imminent fire. I would like to expand further on your view of

the government’s bill that was introduced yesterday, in particular, the mandating of a smoke alarm ineach room.


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Mr Temby: I would defer to the experts on that topic. I am not a fire engineer. I do not knowwhat the best science is on that particular issue. My only plea would be that, if there areadvancements and refinements in the technology around where best to put smoke detectors andwhat type of smoke detector to have, that be done through variations to the Building Code. We wouldhave one set of rules that is hopefully Australia-wide. That is one of the key advantages of the BuildingCode: that it is Australia-wide. Queensland has often led the way in improvements in the Building

Code, and I think this could well be another example of that. In terms of how many are needed andwhere they should be put, that is very much a matter for the experts. As I said, my plea is that we endup with one set of rules and not more than one.

Mr KRAUSE: Mr Temby, thanks for your submission. You represent the Housing Industry Association. Do you have any idea in the construction industry for residential developments whatproportion of photoelectric alarms and ionisation alarms are installed in new premises?

Mr Temby: We surveyed our members nationally for the purposes of the Senate inquiry intothis. We did do some surveys. My recollection—which I am now trying to find—is that less than 30 percent of home-building clients actively chose a particular type of smoke detector. They left it to thebuilder to decide. I cannot find it here—

Mr KRAUSE: I have just found it. It is at part 3 of your submission on page 6. Forty-five percent choose ionisation types. Sorry for asking a question on something that was in your submission.

Mr Temby: I am sorry I did not know the answer.

Mr KRAUSE: Fifteen per cent specify photoelectric types. You were here earlier and heardsome evidence from the experts about fire alarms. That does seem like a low figure in terms ofinstallation of photoelectric fire alarms. Is there space in the Building Code for specifications aboutwhat types of alarms there should be?

Mr Temby: Yes. It does not specify one or the other at the moment. Builders either rely onwhat their clients tell them or their own choice. Unfortunately, the competitive nature of thehome-building industry is that because the ionisation systems are currently cheaper thanphotoelectric ones people gravitate to those. But I have noticed even in the last six months, as therehas been more community discussion about this, possibly driven by some of the aspects of this bill,in talking to a number of our committee members who are active in this space, a lot of them are nowthinking of moving away from the ionisation systems as a matter of course. They are starting to accept

the technical knowledge that they are better than alternative. Builders are not fire engineers either;they will go by whatever is in the code.

Mr KRAUSE: The awareness is out there.

Mr Temby: It is starting to increase. If tomorrow all new homes had to have photoelectricsmoke detectors, assuming there was an adequate supply of them, I do not think you would get verymany ripples from the building industry. A few people would be anxious if they had to go from puttingin two, which is typically what people do now, to putting in 10, or whatever the number might be. Inthe overall scheme of things and the public benefits that come from it, I think people would wear thatwillingly.

Miss BARTON: Warwick, one of the things a previous witness talked about was the impact ofcost. If memory serves, it talks about $1,000 in terms of the potential impost of implementing thechanges. What impact will that have, do you think, not only in terms of your members and newdwellings but also based on your industry experience with existing dwellings and how that will lead tocompliance?

Mr Temby: Adding $1,000 to the cost of a house is clearly not a good thing at any time. Therehas been a lot more media about the cost of housing, housing affordability, negative gearing andcapital gains tax than there has been about smoke detectors. The industry and our organisation areacutely concerned about regulatory creep, I guess you would call it, where every little bit does notsound like a lot but over time they add up to fairly significant imposts on the cost of a house. A lot ofthese things are never reviewed. Once they happen, they are assumed to be a good thing forever,they get built into the fabric of life and things go on. We certainly are concerned about the cost, whichis why I think the previous witness’s suggestion that people could do this incrementally—and, again,that goes back to the phasing—is a pretty good suggestion. If the technology is up to that kind ofstaggered approach, I think people will wear it. The cost of the pool safety legislation, as a

counterexample, was much, much more than this but that has really been 20 years in the gestation.That approach to pool legislation first started back in the nineties, and it has taken a long time but Ithink the community has accepted that you really do need to do something about pool safety.


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I suppose one of our criticisms of the bill and yesterday’s bill is that this there has not been anyregulatory impact assessment along those lines. It is assumed that even if it costs $1,000 it will beworth it, and it may well be, but it would be good to have that kind of rigour around the cost of thesethings. This probably is not a good example, but very frequently regulatory creep in our industrycomes from people’s emotions, feelings and senses rather than any rigorous analysis. I think therehas been a bit more analysis around this particular one about what is a good detector and what is

not. We are concerned but, if you will excuse the pun, not alarmed.The other thing that I think we need to be very mindful of in this exercise—and, again, bearing

in mind the experience particularly with the insulation program—is that every smoke detector expertin the universe will come out of the woodwork as soon as this legislation is passed. They will beknocking on doors, they will be advertising photoelectric smoke detectors for 25 cents if you buy themonline and if you buy 100 of them. I think that is something, too. The practical implementation of thislegislation in lots of ways is much more significant than what is actually written in the bill, althoughthe bill will drive that obviously. It is a concern but not an overriding concern in this case. If you askme about $1,000 for some other bit of regulatory frippery, I might have a very different answer.

Miss BARTON: I pick up on something that you said in terms of transition and incrementallybeing able to install new smoke alarms. You obviously drew a comparison between insulation andthe pool fencing regime. Without putting you on the spot, do you have a particular transition time

frame in mind—whether it is three years or five years—based on your experience of the industry, thatwould be enough to run a good solid education campaign as well as allow people time to actuallybecome compliant?

Mr Temby: I am about to contradict myself. In one way it does not really matter how long thetransition program is because, as we found with the pool legislation—

Miss BARTON: People always leave it to the last minute.

Mr Temby: It became a shock on 1 December that something had to be done. As you wouldknow just as well I do, attracting people’s attention about anything is very complex and complicatedand expensive normally. In that sense, I do not think the length of time is all that important. In apractical sense, it is getting the message out to people that, yes, you can install these things yourself;no, you do not have to have them hardwired; yes, you have this amount of time unless you arerenewing a lease or changing a lease or selling your house or whatever. Selling your house is alwaysa good trigger because there is so much going on at that stage that $1,000 could easily get lost in thecosts of moving.

That was the situation with pool fences. If you can align the trigger points with what is going onin another regulatory space I think that is probably helpful as well. What is on my checklist of things Ihave to do when I am selling a house? I have to make sure the pool is right. I have to make sure thesmoke detectors are right. I have to do whatever it is I need to do. I think that is probably a goodsystem of alignment as well. I think realistically the sorts of time frames that are in the bill that wasintroduced yesterday looked okay.

CHAIR: Your submission to the Senate inquiry into this matter relates to the installation andmandatory requirements in the Northern Territory, being the only state or territory in the nation thatmandates the installation of photoelectric smoke alarms. Are you able to supply to the committeesome feedback on how your organisation dealt with the implementation of that particular initiative?

Mr Temby: From all that I know about what happened up there, it did not hit our members’

radar at all. It was just a regulatory change that said, ‘Stop using this one and start using that one.’ It just happened.

It is much easier in new dwellings than it is in established dwellings. In new dwellings peopleare being bombarded with regulation on a daily basis. They go to their electrician and their electricianknows what to do. They tell them what sort of detectors need to be installed. There is an inspectionregime built into that process by the certification process—whether it is a local authority or a privatecertifier. There are checking systems built in there. It happens all relatively seamlessly. It is muchmore difficult when you are trying to retrofit into two million houses.

CHAIR: But you would have gone through a process of informing your members?

Mr Temby: Absolutely.

CHAIR: There were no issues associated with that?

Mr Temby: The biggest issue for a builder in any of these sorts of changes is getting sufficientwarning of the change to be able to cost it and build it into their quotes. The thing that annoys theindustry more than anything else is if a piece of regulation comes in midway through a contract andhas to be implemented at that point. Twelve months notice is more than enough for most building


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projects, particularly domestic building projects, to be able to factor in the changes that they are goingto have to be making. We advise our members of those sorts of things through all sorts of media andevents and other things that we have.

CHAIR: Do you recall when the territory introduced those laws?

Mr Temby: No, I cannot, I am sorry.

Mr KRAUSE: You may not be the right person to ask this of so forgive me if you are not. Doyou have any idea about the cost of retrofitting, say, six photoelectric smoke alarms in an existingpremises? Do you have a rough estimate?

Mr Temby: The only piece of cost information that I am able to provide you—I think theprevious witnesses were probably better able to answer that than I am—is a message that I got fromsome of our members just last week. Apparently the price gap is closing between the different typesof systems. It was about a $5 difference. From a new perspective, it is not all that much. I would deferto the previous witnesses on that one.

Ms PEASE: You said that specific mention of the type of equipment may not necessarily beappropriate given that the technology is changing. Can you elaborate on that further please?

Mr Temby: All I was suggesting is that the legislation should simply say ‘installation of anapproved smoke alarm is required’ and that what is an approved smoke alarm should be built into a

regulation rather than the legislation. So if some whizzbang technology arrives tomorrow you wouldbe able to quickly update the regulation to say you can have a photoelectric or you can have the Acme smoke detector if that is a better one than the one that is there now. That is all I was suggesting.

Ms PEASE: Probably a good example of that is that once upon a time hardwired interconnectedwas all there was for interconnection. Now there is radio and bluetooth technology available for thosesorts of things.

Mr Temby: Exactly.

CHAIR: I do not think there are any further questions, Mr Temby. Can I thank you for yoursubmission and for your appearance before the committee today.

Mr Temby: My pleasure, Mr Chair.


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GOLINSKI, Mr Keith, Private capacity

NAUMOVSKI, Mr Louie, Founder, Logan Fire Support Network

CHAIR: I welcome Mr Louie Naumovski and Mr Keith Golinski. Thank you for your appearancetoday and for your submissions. We would invite both of you to make a five-minute opening statement.

We do have some extra time, so if you would like more time we are happy if you take a little longer.We will then hand you over to the committee for questions. We will start with Mr Naumovski.

Mr Naumovski: Thank you for letting us appear today. I had every intention to write out astatement up until the surprise new bill was introduced yesterday. Everything we have been workingon went out the window. What we were going to state was pretty much what was introducedyesterday. We want photoelectric alarms in every bedroom, hallway and living areas and we want the10-year lithium battery operated ones to be included.

We were the ones who met with the opposition leader and the shadow emergency servicesminister late last year for that bill to be put before the parliament. We applaud the opposition forhighlighting the important subject of fire safety.

Our issue has always been to protect lives. All this nonsense I keep hearing about cost shouldnever come into play. I go to house fires on a daily basis to pick up the pieces after the emergency

services have left. Tarnya, you would recall that you donated an iPad to a family where the mothercradled her 11-year-old boy who sadly passed away in a house fire. He passed away because therewere three hardwired ionisation alarms in their home that failed to activate. She luckily got her twodaughters out. She went to go back in to get her 11-year-old autistic child out and he never made itout.

We have been to numerous fires. We have been to numerous fatalities. We are currentlyworking on two fatalities right now. We are arranging two funerals for two families and possibly a thirdfrom two nights ago at Goodna. We are still waiting to hear the outcome of that one. He is in a criticalcondition.

What is common in all these situations is the ionisation alarms did not activate. That is howsimple it is. We do not want to hear any nonsense about the cost. Cost never comes into play. Wewant this to be implemented as soon as possible. It is as simple as that.

When we had discussions with the shadow emergency services minister late last we werelooking at implementing a requirement that from 1 July this year all brand-new homes must be done,1 July 2017 all rentals must be done and 1 July 2019 all other residents must be completed. That isa three-year phase-in period. Last year there were 1,908 house fires in the state of Queensland andwe had 23 fatalities. I do not know about you, but I do not want another 6,000 house fires over thenext three years and I do not want to lose another 50 lives. With the new bill that was introducedyesterday, which would have a 10-year phase-in, we are looking at a further 20,000 house fires andover 200 deaths. If we had any other incident like this in this state, legislation would be passed soquickly with fewer fatalities. Some 230 Queenslanders could potentially die over the next 10 years.Cost does not come into play.

At the earliest possible opportunity that we can implement this it has to be done. Education andawareness is a must. As Mr Isaac pointed out, we saw on social media last night on our page peoplesaying, ‘My one alarm already goes off. Now I am going to have six or seven of them going off.’ The

people do not understand the difference. We need to educate them on the difference betweenphotoelectric and ionisation alarms. I have even had ministers and those in the media who do notknow how to say ‘photoelectric’. That is the sad reality of it all. I have all sorts of words being used. Itis photoelectric. If it is drummed into people’s heads it will work. It is common sense. It is a no-brainer.We always say it is a no-brainer.

I remember talking to the opposition leader. I was told I had five minutes to stimulate his mind.I had a 15-minute interview with him. I was there for 45 minutes, which was unbelievable. I could notbelieve I was sitting in front of the opposition leader for that long. At the end of the conversation hesaid, ‘Louie, it is a no-brainer.’ Of course it is. We need to implement this. We need to put it out there.

The figures tell the story. We have had enough. When we heard yesterday an implementationperiod of 10 years, I was horrified. The emergency services minister got up in parliament and saidthat we have had 150 deaths over the last 10 years in Queensland, so let us give it another 10 years

before we make it law. He is basically saying, ‘I do not care about the next 150 Queenslanders whoare going to die.’

CHAIR: With respect, I do not think that is the case that the minister is presenting.


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005

Mr Naumovski: I am an advocate for fire safety. This is what the public are telling us. This iswhat we are hearing. This is what the public believes. I understand what you are saying there. I amsure he does not believe that. That is the general gist of what is happening out there. As we heardMr Temby say, with the pool-fencing requirements everyone panicked on 1 December. We are goingto allow this until 31 December 2026 and then once again everybody is going to panic. We will have10 years where people are going to keep dying. That is what I am getting at.

Mr Golinski: Thank you for allowing me to speak. I am going to read because I have it in someorder. It is better on paper than in my head. On Christmas Day 2011 my partner and I joined Matt,Rachael and their three children for brunch. As Rachael brought out some candles for the Christmastable, which we were later dismissed by the investigators and the coroner as the cause of the fire,ironically I said to her, ‘Are your smoke alarms working?’

If I had known then what I know now, I would have known that I was asking the wrong question.I would have asked if their smoke alarms were photoelectric or ionisation. As far as they wereconcerned, they fully believed that the two alarms installed in their house would have warned themin time in the event of a fire. After all, there was no reason to believe that they would not be effectiveas they would always go off if the toast burnt or even if the jug boiled. Does that comment soundfamiliar?

Of course it would have been too late to do anything at that stage anyway, as 15 hours later

Rachael and my three grandchildren had perished. Matt had lost his immediate family and whilsttrying in vain to save them had received horrible burns to 40 per cent of his body and spent the nextfour months in hospital—two months of that in a coma in intensive care.

However, it is not too late for others. If I can do anything to save others from horrors such asthis, I am happy to do what I can. I will have at least some satisfaction in knowing that three beautifulgrandchildren and their beautiful mother achieved a lot in their short time and I will have anotherreason to always be proud of them.

I am not qualified to give an explanation as to why in the majority of house fires ionisationalarms simply do not warn the occupants in time whereas photoelectric do. There are others who cando that. I know there is a mountain of evidence including from experts who have been fighting forchange in the regulation for decades. Anyone who looks at the Channel 9 60 Minutes story fromNovember 2014 labelled ‘The Alarming Truth’ has to be immediately convinced. That was when I firstknew of the differences in alarms and I was shocked. All of the recommendations that I have seenfrom authorities such as chiefs of emergency services recommended change.

After Australia’s worst house fire, at Slacks Creek in 2011, the coroner recommended change.That was hugely reinforced by the coroner in his report into the Tewantin fire that took the lives ofMatt’s family. I enclose a copy of an article by Nicole Hasham from the 10 January 2016 SydneyMorning Herald which bears the headline ‘Fire authorities warn of inadequate smoke alarm laws’. Ido not know if or why we have to do anything to convince members of parliament that change isessential. It seems plain to everyone else. You will no doubt be aware of the Senate inquiry intosmoke alarms from late 2015.

Change is essential, public awareness is essential and legislation is essential. I have given asnippet as to why change is essential. For years people have been told that smoke alarms save lives.Ionisation alarms have been accepted as being effective and in fact are the type that have usuallybeen recommended. It is now firmly fixed in our minds that we are protected by the ionisation alarms,

which are fitted to over 90 per cent of homes. I have likened this before to Russian roulette. Withouteven being aware of it, people are playing Russian roulette not only with their own lives but also withthe lives of their families. Do any of us think our house is going to be the one that burns down? Thatonly happens to other people.

Legislation is necessary. I had a new house built which I moved into in May 2011. Even afterall that I had gone through, I am ashamed to say that it was not until March last year that I thought tocheck to see what type the one alarm in my new house was. I simply accepted that in a new housethings must be done right these days. It would not burn down anyway. I was a bit horrified to find outthat it was still an ionisation alarm. I went out and bought two photoelectric alarms, which is still notideal but definitely safer. Several other people I have explained the problem to have also gone outand bought PE alarms. People simply have no idea. I agree with others who suggest that people havebeen lulled into a false sense of security. Even if PE alarms became mandatory, it will take years forchanges to come into full effect.

I would like to see a public awareness campaign begin immediately to warn people so that atleast they can make an informed choice to adequately protect their family or just take their chances.I believe there were nearly 2,000 house fires in Queensland last year, no doubt some of them


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fatalities. Please look at these changes as a matter of extreme urgency. Every month delayed mightmean another 200 fires in Queensland and possibly deaths. I know it does not do any good to say ‘ifonly’, but I cannot help thinking, ‘If only we had this chance for change before Christmas Day 2011.’When interviewed on changes to the laws regarding alcohol fuelled violence and lockout laws on ABC’s 7.30 on 12 February, the Premier said—

I do not want to see more tragedies and we must do something.

...

How can anyone sit by and not have a conscience when it comes to these laws? These laws are about public safety.

The Premier was speaking about the lockout laws. Is public safety any less important when itcomes to not just smoke alarms but also fire protection in general? I have heard people mention cost.The cost can be very little, but I would always like to suggest that when it comes to Christmas,birthdays, Mother’s Days, Father’s Days—any time anyone would like to give a gift—give aphotoelectric smoke alarm. It is a small cost, but it could be the gift of life. Please do not let thischance for change pass without urgent action now.

There are a few points in the coroner’s report that I would like to go back to if you would like toask questions on that. I would like to just skim on a couple of those.

CHAIR: I have a question regarding that. One of the recommendations by the coroner was the

need for interconnected alarms. I would like to hear your position on that recommendation.

Mr Golinski: As has been mentioned here today, one photoelectric alarm is an improvementon what a lot of people have now. Interconnection, going further, having one in every room and sevenin a house, is going to an extreme that might put people off. It might put legislation off because itmight not win a lot of votes; I do not know. Perhaps I should not say that, but it is a reality. It will be abit of an impost on some people—I know that—but it was also mentioned that it can be done in stages. As I said in my address, a gift of a smoke alarm might be $20 or $50. Interconnection is what wewould all hope for, but it is not absolutely essential. There are other things that will do the job until weget to that stage.

CHAIR: Appreciating you are probably not in a position, Mr Golinski, to be aware of thegovernment’s bill, which requires the interconnectivity of smoke alarms in every bedroom andbetween areas containing bedrooms and hallways servicing bedrooms and in other storeys of the

residential dwelling as well, I assume that is something you would be supportive of.Mr Golinski: Yes, definitely. We are all for those changes. It is simply the time frames and the

type of alarms. All of the details really have not probably been perfected yet. I think consultation andmore work in studying what is really required is probably a good thing.

CHAIR: Mr Naumovski, what is your view on the coroner’s recommendation ofinterconnectivity?

Mr Naumovski: Basically, we are of the belief that it is certainly not necessary right now dueto the cost. We have done some research. There are probably only two companies out there at themoment that do the radio frequency photoelectric smoke alarms for existing homes. As we said, weare concerned that we want it implemented as soon as possible. We want the photoelectric smokealarms in every bedroom, hallway and living area as soon as possible. Whether it be interconnectedor not, we are not fazed by that as long as they are in all rooms.

As Mr Golinski just pointed out, certainly we want them in all rooms but with the ionisation stopthe false alarming and stop being disconnected. Statistics are telling us 30 per cent of Australians willgo to sleep tonight unprotected because they are disconnected because of the false alarms. Gettingphotoelectrics in there is a start. Certainly we want to push for the bedrooms for children, where theysleep, for the earliest possible warning. Interconnectivity is debatable for us. Certainly eventually,absolutely, but cost-wise I think that is going to be the issue right now with interconnectivity.

CHAIR: Are you aware of what the cost is?

Mr Naumovski: At the moment for a 10-year stand-alone sealed photoelectric alarm you arelooking at about $70 and the radio frequency is about $115, so you are going to be looking at about$180 per alarm to interconnect radio frequency-wise. I think Mr Krause asked earlier about the costof the hardwired at the moment. You can go to Bunnings and get a photoelectric smoke alarmhardwired. You still need to be mindful that you need an electrician. You are looking at $49 for that

photoelectric 240 hardwired, or an ionisation is $45. We are talking $4 difference at the moment, sothat is the cost-effectiveness there.


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006

As I said, for existing homes I think we might have an issue with the cost, but certainly in termsof supply and demand—and obviously now with all this discussion—I am sure you are going to seelots of manufacturers scrambling for technology and you are going to get more and more. I did hearovernight that there is a third player coming in. They are not readily available, but people are movingforward on it. Also, by this legislation going we are mindful of making sure that it is not going to berushed and we are going to have issues. So ideally it would be photoelectrics in every bedroom but

interconnection is debatable.CHAIR: Do you have a position on the backup of lithium batteries in interconnected

photoelectronic alarms?

Mr Naumovski: Obviously the 10-year sealed tamperproof alarms cannot be disconnected, socook to your heart’s content and nothing is really going to—as I said, they are never going to stop afalse alarm. Even with photoelectrics it would be stupid to stand here and say it is never going tohappen. It will happen, but technology is improving. Even with your 240 hardwired there is yourlong-life nine-volt battery that is available, but our concern with that is because it is still running onpower, in 10 years time people are going to be neglectful of it, whereas a 10-year sealed lithiumbattery inside will start chirping at the 10-year mark and it will keep chirping until you have to replacethe whole unit. That is why we are pushing more for the 10-year sealed rather than the 240 hardwired.

Mr KRAUSE: Mr Golinski and Mr Naumovski, thank you for being here. Mr Golinski, can I say

it is great to see you here and thank you for telling us about your loss a few years ago. I can relatepersonally: I built a new house a couple of years ago and ionisation alarms were installed. After seeingsome media about the issue we had to go and retrofit photoelectric alarms. Louie, I apologise, Ireferred to them as photovoltaic alarms before. There is confusion out there. Thank you for the workyou do in Logan.

I just wanted to take you, Mr Naumovski, to your comments about the time frame in both thegovernment’s bill and the bill before us here today. You had some comments about that. Do youagree with the time frame that was set out in the member for Kawana’s bill before us today?

Mr Naumovski: Absolutely. Yes, we fully support that. We were supportive of that. Obviouslywhen we had discussions with the shadow emergency services minister we did point out that we werelooking at more alarms in the home. We loved the bill; it was all great. As I said, up until yesterdaymorning my position here was going to be fully supportive of the 2015 bill but with the inclusion of

bedrooms and living areas. That was what our argument was going to be this morning.Mr KRAUSE: I represent part of Logan City, out at Jimboomba, and we all feel the loss in the

community when there is a house fire, so thank you for the work that you do and for your advocacyhere today.

Ms PEASE: Thank you both very much for coming in. My condolences to you, Mr Golinski. Iknow what a tragic time it was for your family. You spoke about public awareness and how to raisethe profile of potential changes. Do you have any suggestions as to how we might progress that?

Mr Golinski: My first suggestion would probably be not to follow some of the things that havehappened in the past along those lines, because on some things a lot of money has been spent andvery little word has got out there. It has to be something that is going to work with people. As we justheard, as soon as someone has heard about these smoke alarms—and it has only just happenedwith the Senate inquiry. Before the inquiry was actually over we had people ringing to get their

electrician to go out and check their alarms.It is simply word of mouth. I have told a few people, and they are just absolutely staggered and

they go out and do it. Word of mouth is one thing, and I suppose I am not a PR expert but there hasto be something fairly dynamic to hit people, to tell people, to inform people. It is not just a matter ofsaying, ‘Look, you are going to have to change your smoke alarms.’ You have to explain to them thereasons. I knew nothing about this. I had no idea. But now that I have learned from some of thesepeople who have been involved in it for years, I do understand the differences.

Ms PEASE: Further to that, one of the previous witnesses talked about commercial propertiesand how we can walk into any commercial property and they are all hardwired, they are allinterconnected and we are all safe, yet when we go into our own homes we do not have that. The billthat the government introduced yesterday is planning to legislate for interconnected alarms. Whatwould your commentary be on that?

Mr Golinsk i: As I said, I am not a technical expert, really. I think a lot of these things probably,before any bill goes through, have to be tossed around a lot more and get a lot more consultationwith the people who have been involved in these industries for a long time, because we cannot just


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guess at it and say, ‘This is going to be better than that.’ It has to be studied; it has to be tested. Therehas been a lot of testing going on, but we have to accept that those tests are all right. I thinkinterconnection is preferable; I do not think it is absolutely necessary. I think the first thing to do is toget people at least one alarm and then more and more, if they can—whatever they can put in—tospread the cost out. There is going to be some cost, but it is a relatively small cost, I think. It can bea relatively small cost. It does not have to be the thousand dollars that we are talking about.

Ms PEASE: Particularly in light of the fact that the other costs that might be associated with itfar outweigh that.

Mr Golinski: Yes, that’s right.

Mrs SMITH: Thank you both for coming in and presenting today. Louie, we spoke last yearafter the tragic Westlake fire. Within the community, a lot of people would be thinking that if theiralarms are hardwired, a power surge or a power blackout may disable the alarms. Is that currentlywhat happens? Can you explain a little bit more with regard to the hardwiring and the fires that youhave actually been involved in?

Mr Naumovski: We get that out of the public, obviously: ‘I’m hardwired, so when there’s ablackout what am I going to do?’—and all the rest of it. You have to explain to them that, no, that iswhy you have your nine-volt battery in there, to back it up. They say, ‘But I don’t replace it.’ Onceagain, we constantly hear that they do not replace it. That is why we are going down the path of the10-year sealed. Your 10-year sealed is just perfect and it will be there all the time. We are constantlyhearing that.

The first thing that goes in your house when a fire erupts is your power. If you have that nine-voltbattery and you have not changed it for a couple of years and it has slowly died, that is it: you haveno warning as soon as that fire has erupted. Basically, we do not want to take that chance anymore.That is why there is a move away from the 240. In the time frame that we are looking at trying to getit done—I think someone mentioned earlier that you are going to get these cowboys coming out andtaking advantage of this legislation. The industry needs to be overhauled on that side of it, also. Wedo not want to see that. We do not want a repeat of what has happened over the years whensomething has been implemented and someone comes up with a brilliant idea, goes to Bunnings,gets a stepladder and a cordless drill, and away they go. That is when we are going to start havingproblems. Ten-year sealed, two screws—people can do it themselves. As Mr Golinski said, slowly

but surely, one room at a time, the home owners can do it. As he mentioned, some people will buy itas a present. It can be affordable.

Mrs SMITH: Is there anything else that we can be doing or looking at to reduce the incidence?

Mr Naumovski: We have all said education and awareness. We were consulted by theopposition; that was fine. We have tried to talk with the current government. We have had noconsultation. It is not that we are special or anything like that, but talk to the people who are on theground. We are the ones out in the communities nearly every weekend handing out brochures, andwe seem blocked. I feel that we are blocked because we are speaking out. We are here to try to savelives. As you said, we met at Westlake. Six funerals we have arranged recently—six funerals. It is notcheap. We are there to assist these families to make sure that we take the burden away.

Emergency services do a fantastic job. We will never take that away from them. The boys andgirls on the ground are fantastic, but they have their job to do and then they disappear. Once the fire

is out, they are gone. We are there to pick up the pieces and continue to pick up the pieces, organisethe funerals, go to the funerals. That all has to stop. There should be education and awareness. Talkto us as stakeholders also. Get our input. I do not know who the stakeholders are in all these things.We would like to know who the stakeholders are. Who is making all these decisions? As I said, weare the ones at the coalface who are seeing this. Include us in it. Do not exclude us. We are trying towork together, but we seem to be blocked. Every time we ask for something, brochures or whateverfrom QFES, we seem to get a roadblock. We are doing your job for you for free; do not block us.

Mrs SMITH: I appreciate that. As I said, all the help that you gave that family—my son goes tothe children’s school, so we knew about it—and everything that you did there was very muchappreciated. I thank you for the work that you do.

Mr Naumovski: You are welcome.

Mr BROWN: Mr Naumovski, I am more interested in levels of education, especially in Logan,

which is a low socioeconomic area. You touched on education pamphlets and so on. If you had moreresources, what would you do with regard to boosting education in those areas?


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Mr Naumovski: We have to get into the school curriculum. Children are like sponges: theyabsorb a lot of things. If we can try to get into the schools and start talking—and not just to littlepreppies but start going constantly, just like the Morcombes do. They constantly go out there and thatissue is constantly in the public eye and people know about it. If we could do that, we could have littleforums, we could have family days and all the rest of it. As you said, in low socioeconomicdemographic areas and multicultural areas, certainly we need more and more emphasis on that. We

need interpreters to start coming along with us, to try to talk to those different multiculturalnationalities.

If we had the resources we could certainly do it but, once again, we do not seem to get it. Wehave found sometimes the government wishes to hold a forum and hand out these smoke alarms,because we are doing a good thing. We see them at the markets a few weeks later. We have warnedthem, ‘Don’t do that. Give them a voucher. We’ll go and install them free of charge.’ But no, they donot want to align themselves with a charity network. How stupid is that? That is our issue. If we havethe resources, let us all work together.

We will eventually start getting into the minds of the different nationalities in certaindemographic areas and try to get into schools. QFES has so many good things out there with stickersand fire-escape plans and all the rest of it that are just sitting idle. That should be handed out to kids.Kids go home and tell mum and dad and—surprise, surprise: ‘That’s right, we do have a smoke alarm

on our ceiling.’ When we walk in the door, we are looking at eye level. We are not walking in andlooking at the ceiling; we are looking at our loved ones or we sit down on couch and look at our TV.We do not look up there. If kids bring stuff home, they are going to start a conversation.

Mr Golinski: Kids are a great way to get the message through.

Miss B ARTON: Mr Naumovski, I picked up on something that you said earlier in response toTarnya’s question, that you had not been consulted on the government’s bill. I appreciate that todaywe are supposed to be talking about the opposition’s bill, but I was really struck by that. You said thatyou felt like no-one had really been listening to you, except Lawrence Springborg and the opposition.Have the previous minister and the current minister not reached out to you, with your experience, totalk to you at all about this?

Mr Naumovski: I am not going to sit here and lie: that is absolutely right. This is not aboutpolitics; it is not—

Miss BARTON: No—

Mr Naumovski: No, I am just explaining myself. I am this down-to-earth guy who does this inour community. We have expanded outside of Logan. We tried to work with the government: issues.We went to the opposition: listened. Now the current sitting government has put in a bill that we—donot get me wrong, we like what is in there, apart from the phase-in period. That is our issue. Our otherissue is the interconnectivity, cost-wise. As I mentioned earlier, it should not come down to cost, butunfortunately it will in low socioeconomic demographic areas. This is what I mean: who are thesestakeholders who are putting in these bills? Talk to the experts. We have Australia’s leading expertin the room today with regard to fire safety and he was not consulted. You have the guy who goesaround and picks up the pieces and he was not consulted. We are not special, but include the peoplewho can have an input to it. We were at a federal Senate inquiry last year and here we are againtoday, arguing this again. We want to stop coming to these meetings where everyone has their time

wasted, because it is all about saving lives. That is the ultimate thing that we are all here for. I willrepeat the figures: 1,908 house fires and 23 deaths last year alone. That has to stop. That is theultimate.

CHAIR: Mr Naumovski, given that the government only introduced this bill yesterday andsubject to the process of the committee, no doubt we will be opening up that opportunity forconsultation. Hopefully that will give you another chance to come and speak to the committee withregard to that particular bill. Do you have any further questions?

Miss B ARTON: No. I just wanted to know whether former minister Miller or Minister Byrne hadcontacted you at all.

Mr Naumovski: No. We met with Minister Miller, but no joy. Mr Byrne is fairly recent and wehave not had a chance to formally catch up. We had a quick catch-up yesterday afternoon after heintroduced the bill, but that has been about it. He was obviously away to media commitments and all

the rest of it. That has been it.Mrs SMITH: Out of those 1,900-odd fires, what is the most common cause? Is it in a particular

location like the kitchen?


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Mr Naumovski: Kitchen fires and electrical are the two main ones. Sadly, children are up therein the top 5. That is an issue that we have, which is why the education side has to be implemented. As I said, we are willing to work with the government as much as we can. If they actually sat downand listened, we would be more than happy to implement some things there. We have spoken to theeducation minister. We actually are talking to a few principals in about a month’s time. Once again, itis just a slow process. It is gets dragged on a little bit. It has to be fast-tracked a bit more into the

school curriculum. We can find time for that. It can be achieved.Mr KRAUSE: You mentioned children. Are they playing with fire?

Mr Naumovski: Yes, matches and lighters.

Mr KRAUSE: At the risk of labouring Verity’s point, have you met with any of your localmembers in Logan about these issues?

Mr Naumovski: Yes, absolutely. They are fully supportive. I have obviously Cameron Dick,Shannon Fentiman, Linus Power and Mick de Brenni. They are fully supportive of the bill— photoelectric, that is.

Mr Golinski: Mr Chair, might I have a couple of minutes just to cover a couple of points?

CHAIR: Of course, by all means.

Mr Golinski: This is from the coroner’s report into the Tewantin fire and they are very relevantpoints. I do not know whether everyone has read that coroner’s report. The report states that,according to the Queensland Police Service findings—

The smoke alarms failed to perform their role in warning the occupants of the house that the fire had commenced. The housewas engulfed by fire by the time the occupants were awake and able to understand what was going on, resulting in Racheland her daughters not being able to escape from the burning structure.

The police concluded that if the smoke alarms had been functioning effectively, the fire, and consequently the deaths, couldhave been prevented.

That is one section. The toxicology is interesting. The report states that the four deaths allresulted from smoke inhalation. The amount of carbon monoxide in one of the twins, the lowest, was30 per cent. Another was 36 per cent. Starlia, the youngest, was 48 per cent. Rachael, the mother,was 73 per cent carbon monoxide. That tells a whole story. Paragraph 44 states—

After considering submissions from QFES, Coroner McDougall made a number of comments and recommendations in thisregard, which I have reproduced below:

“Legislation should be put in place as soon as possible the effect of which is such that all places where people sleepshould be provided with early warning ...

I will not go into the rest, as you know that. That is his recommendation. He says in hisrecommendation that all of those areas should be fitted with an approved smoke detector. He thensays—

An approved smoke alarm for these purposes means a photoelectric type smoke alarm—

this is the coroner saying this, not me—

that complies with Australian Standard ...

In his conclusions, he says in paragraph 51—

I conclude that the fire was most likely started from an ignition source located on or immediately below the Christmas tree.He says in paragraph 52—

The family received no warning from the two ionisation type smoke alarms which were installed at the home. The evidencefrom Matt was that the alarms were in working order, and there was nothing in the lead up to the fire to suggest or warn thefamily that the batteries needed replacing, or that there was anything operationally wrong with the alarms. It is likely that bythe time Matt and Rachael were aware of the fire it had already passed flashover point and the fire had fully engulfed theHouse.

He says in paragraph 54—

Having regard to the 2014 recommendations from the Slacks Creek House Fire inquest and the current Senate inquiry, theredoes not appear to be any prospect of making additional recommendations that would reduce the likelihood of similar deathsoccurring in the future or otherwise contributing to public health and safety.

He is saying that everything he recommended in the Slacks Creek fire still stands. There havebeen no changes to his mind. He is just reinforcing it. I have no doubt that with every death that occursin the future he will repeat that over and over and over again.

CHAIR: Thank you, gentlemen, for your appearance here this morning and for the submissionsyou have provided to the committee.


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BLEIJIE, Mr Jarrod, Member for Kawana, Parliament of Queensland

CHAIR: We will now move to the public briefing on the Fire and Emergence Services (Smoke Alarms) Amendment Bill, hearing from the proponent of this bill, the member for Kawana. We willallow you a couple of minutes to brief the committee and then no doubt we will hand over to committeemembers to ask some questions of you.

Mr Bleijie: Thank you, Chair, committee members and witnesses. I saw in person Mr Golinskiand the Logan Fire Support Network—thank you very much for that, Louie—and I watched the otherwitnesses this morning from my office.

I think the overriding factor I would like to get across is why I introduced this bill and to givesome insight into the time line that we have seen for the development of this bill. We had the SlacksCreek house fire, which has been talked about this morning, which killed many people. We have hadhouse fires since then. Mr Golinski gave an explanation of the unfortunate set of circumstances withhis family and the loss of life in his family. Something had to be done.

A coroner’s investigation in relation to the Slacks Creek house fire was handed down to theprevious government in November 2014. Committee members will be aware that there was anelection in January 2015 and a new government was formed. The new government under formerminister Miller sat on the coroner’s recommendations for 12 months and did not act on the coronial

recommendations. As Mr Golinski has pointed out, the coroner’s report into the Tewantin house firewas handed down recently. It also noted that the recommendations in the Slacks Creek house firecoroner’s report still remained and the coroner also noted that nothing had happened.

Former minister Jo-Ann Miller, the member for Bundamba, was asked on an ABC program asto why she sat on her hands on the coroner’s recommendations and had not implemented changesto smoke alarms in Queensland. The former minister was noted as saying, ‘There is a cost issue andwe are waiting to see what the Senate inquiry hands down.’

I then met with Louie, Christine and the team and Mr Golinski with the opposition leader withrespect to discussing photoelectric alarms versus the ionised alarms and then had a look at all of thecoroner’s recommendations and soon came to the realisation and conclusion that something had tohappen and, if Jo-Ann Miller was no going to do it and the current government was not going to do it,then we would introduce a private member’s bill, which is why I introduced the private member’s bill.I thank the Logan Fire Support Network for all the assistance they gave with respect to this issue. Itis an important issue and sometimes in this job you just have to get on and do it and show peoplethat you are listening and that you are making the changes.

Since the introduction of my private member’s bill dealing with this issue and mandatingphotoelectric alarms in Queensland—incidentally before this committee was to hear about my billtoday—we had the new minister rush into parliament yesterday and introduce his own bill whicheffectively deals with the issue of ionisation versus photoelectric alarms and mandates photoelectricalarms with some changes in his bill compared to my bill. So we have gone from a situation wherewe had no action under the current government to the minister saying, ‘Let’s wait until the Senateinquiry is handed down,’ to the private member’s bill, to yesterday the government not waiting for theSenate investigation or inquiry to be handed down but introducing their own bill, to this committeehearing today.

My point is that my bill is there. The government bill is there. I suspect that they will want to

pass the government bill ahead of my bill. At the end of the day this is about safety. I have a bit ofexperience with this because I introduced the presumptive legislation dealing with firefighters andcancer. The government then introduced their bill on top of that and passed their bill in parliament.So I have experience with government copying my bills. I am happy for them to do it because if itsaves lives of Queenslanders that is what it is all about.

There are some differences between the two bills. I was not sure if Louie was going to bringhis collection of props, so I have brought two props to explain my limited knowledge of photoelectricversus ionisation alarms. But the technical experts have explained how they detect and the particlesand the size of the particles and the benefits of the photoelectric alarms. What I did want to talk to thecommittee about is that the opposition bill does not mandate alarms in every bedroom. TheQueensland Fire and Emergency Services’ current regulatory framework keeps the a

legal affairs & community safety committee public hearing transcript 24 feb 2016

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