Page 3685 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 23 November 2022
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our public schools also assists in providing more sustainable access to electricity so that our schools can operate in a way that our young people can now enjoy, but also for our young people into the future.
MR DAVIS: Minister, have you yet met, or do you intend to meet, with the Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability to better understand these recommendations in this submission?
MS BERRY: I have not met with them, and I had not intended to. I have not been approached by them. I am sure that if they did contact me, I would welcome an opportunity for me or the Education Directorate to meet with them.
MS CLAY: What plans are there to support the design and planting of micro forests in and around ACT schools?
MS BERRY: That is a really good question from Ms Jo Clay. In fact, during Tree Week I visited Hawker College, my old college. I am an alumna of Hawker College, so it was great to be back there to participate in the school’s planting of hundreds of trees in celebration of Tree Day, where every student in the school got to participate in that event to make sure that that school—and also the community—had a climate for itself through an improved tree canopy.
That is just one initiative—one of the outcomes—that our schools are doing to make sure that they are meeting their environmental responsibilities as far as the young people are concerned, but also within the community, to be able to enjoy the hundreds and hundreds of trees and shrubs that were planted by those young people.
ACT Ambulance Service—staffing
MR MILLIGAN: My question is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Minister, earlier this year you assured the Assembly you were actively recruiting thirty officers for the ambulance service. However, the recent annual report showed that the number has only increased by five officers. That is less than two per cent increase in ambulance officers whilst the number of medical incidences has increased by a staggering 7,530. Yet the TWU recently reported you were stalling in negotiations on staffing levels. Minister, can you explain to the Assembly why negotiations have stalled when the needs are so extreme that ambos are writing messages on the back of their ambulances saying that they are not ok?
MR GENTLEMAN: I thank Mr Milligan for the question. Of course we have been working with our paramedics, our ambulance officers over several years on recruiting. The previous funding packages have delivered 53 additional paramedics, seven additional ambulances and of course the other ancillary equipment such as powered stretchers that you would remember Madam Speaker, in all ambulance vehicles to help them with the physicality of the work they do. But it is quite a big challenge and we have embarked on a very strong recruitment round for ACTAS. We need to do a lot more.
The work we have been doing most recently with the TWU has been about rosters. The current roster system has been in place for many, many years and it is an old
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