Page 3897 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 23 October 1990
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gear, the stress on those ambulance officers is greater. The result, of course, will be more sick leave, and perhaps as time goes past, because of the cumulative effects of critical incident stress, there will be the loss of other highly qualified, highly dedicated, and quite young ambulance officers before their time.
As I said when I opened up on the matter, Mr Speaker, this is of serious consequence to the community because the services which people expect and pay for through the levy for ambulance services are not being supplied up to expectations. People are being diddled by this Government because the Government has not got its recruiting processes into place. Do not tell me, Minister, that in the time that you have been in government you could not recruit more than seven people. Do not tell me that, because it cannot be true. It cannot be true.
Mr Humphries: It is seven more than you had, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: So, since you have been Minister you have been able to recruit only seven people. Do you think, Minister, that the seven people you have recruited will be able to fix up the massive amount of shifts which have not been able to be serviced because of staff shortages?
This Minister has failed. He has let down the people of the ACT and he has diddled the private insurers of this Territory, because they are the ones that are paying a massive amount - - -
Mr Humphries: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: the reference to having diddled private insurers in the Territory is, I think, offensive and unparliamentary. I ask Mr Berry to withdraw it.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, I believe the interpretation of that is "stolen". I would ask you to withdraw that, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, I withdraw that. The fact of the matter is that this Minister sitting over here is the one who has taken money from those insurers and has not provided the goods that were promised. The fact of the matter is that people who insure in this Territory are promised four ambulances per shift, 24 hours a day. This Minister has not delivered. He took over the reins as Minister with all sorts of intentions and higher than thou attitudes in relation to ambulance services, but in almost a year he has done nothing to fix the situation.
All that has happened is that seven recruits have been taken into the Ambulance Service and there have been massive increases in sick leave because of pressure on the work force. Nobody can deny that, and, if the Minister does, he is deluding himself. If workers in that sort of industry work that many extra shifts they will suffer, and so will their families, and so will the people they are supposed to service out in the Territory.
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