• Today (Friday, May 9) …
Tasmania’s emergency services hamstrung by ineffective radio network, report says EMMA HOPE Police reporter Mercury May 08, 2014.
A DAMNING report that exposes a dire lack of police radio coverage across Tasmania, a non-secure network and a breakdown in communication between emergency services has sparked urgent calls for the problem to be fixed – 20 years after the issues were first raised.
“Without a secure, properly connected radio network, our members and Tasmanian families are at risk and have been for the last 20 years,” Police Association of Tasmania president Pat Allen told the Mercury.
In a widespread and disturbing report released yesterday, Auditor-General Mike Blake, pictured, found …
• Last year …
Damning report on Tasmania’s bushfire crisis:
Tasmanian Times here ( Read all 50 comments ).
• Two days later …
Bushfire radio upgrade faces seven-year delay The Mercury, 17 Oct 2013
CRITICAL communication failures that put emergency workers’ lives at risk during last summer’s bushfire crisis will not be fixed for up to seven years, the state’s police chief admitted yesterday, because the government wants a ‘whole of government’ system and that is ‘complex’.
Police and firefighters were unable to relay critical fire updates to each other during the crisis because their radio networks were incompatible, the Hyde inquiry into the crisis noted.
However, Police Commissioner Darren Hine yesterday admitted a solution to the problem was still some time off.
“We’re looking at a whole of government radio system that hopefully will be implemented between 2018 and 2020,” he said.
SATURDAY: • Mercury: Ambos under siege as emergency services radio woes worsen
