Community
3 December, 2025
Emergency services gather
EMERGENCY services from across the region came together at the Port Campbell Surf Lifesaving Club for a conference discussing their coordination efforts in beach and coastal rescues.
Held on Monday, December 1, the conference encouraged conversations between different emergency responding agencies to get a better understanding of their operations and strategies in relation to one another.
Port Campbell police Senior Constable Troy Beames said the focus was on marine and coastal rescues.
“This is a rare chance for us to come together outside of the normal critical incident response where we’re all stressed and working hard and being able to discuss specific tasks in relation to marine and coastal rescues in the area,” he said.
“Each agency is coming up with and presenting on their most recent resources, capabilities and techniques in relation to marine and coastal rescues.
“Victoria Police, we’re usually the lead agency on these jobs, so the information is really vital for us to make sure we have the most up to date resources so we know who to call for different scenarios to get a quick response and the best outcome.
“It also helps us to strengthen our understanding of when we’re the lead agency how we can best support all these agencies to do the job.
“Beyond that, it’s also a chance for us to highlight the great job that our volunteer agencies do in the area.”
Mr Beames said it was important to recognise the efforts of volunteers who dedicate their free time to serving the community.
“I think sometimes it goes unnoticed or I think a lot of the community aren’t even aware that so many of our emergency response are volunteers,” he said.
“That’s across the Country Fire Authority, Community Emergency Response Team, Surf Lifesaving Clubs, Marine Rescue, State Emergency Service – they’re all people doing this on their own time just for the sake of the community so I think it’s an important thing for people to understand.
“The amount of time they dedicate to training, responding to jobs and everything else that they put aside just to help the community.”
Mr Beames also said he wanted the community to understand the importance of staying safe around beaches and cliffs.
“We want to get safety messages out there too, things like people understanding their abilities in the water, using patrolled beaches and swimming between the flags,” he said.
“It’s about sticking to the designated walking tracks and lookouts and not getting too close to cliff edges and embankments and things and people putting themselves in positions of danger.
“Beyond that a lot of it is about the boaties out there making sure they are doing everything right, making sure they’re carrying all their safety equipment and communications equipment.
“Prevention is going to be better than us being called out to multiple jobs.”
Warrnambool Fire Rescue Victoria acting commander Jarrod Allan said the conference was a good chance for emergency services to learn more about each other’s operations.
“It’s a well ran conference and it’s important to have all agencies here to communicate what each agency does differently to allow each agency to have a better understanding in the case we do go to a rescue that we’re all on the same page for a better outcome,” he said.
“What the conversation today has been about is mostly the coastal region, but we at Fire Rescue specialise in cliff rescues with people trapped on cliffs or down on beaches.
“That’s where we come into it but a lot of the others do mostly the water side of things.”
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