I think it was given to them for a base, Citizen Radio Emergency Service Team had no funding and were looking for somewhere to house there operation.
It was set up at a time when there were quite a few incidents involving water craft around Kwinana, Rocky and Freo area although they also took calls for other emergencies over the radio, 29 & 27mhz. This was a valuable service because there was no mobile phones around then.
They were monitoring mostly 24/7 and all volunteers, even took radio calls for water craft in Mandurah as the only other (by Memory) service was located at Whitfords or somewhere north of river, memory fails me atm.