Page 616 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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able to assist in the rescue, but the Fire Brigade was not notified by the police of the incident. The control room should have been told, Mr Fowler said.
Mr Kaine: Go and talk to the rescue squad. You are speaking off the top of your head. You do not know what you are talking about.
MRS GRASSBY: I am saying what the coroner said. This is what the coroner said and he said that this was a full report. I am repeating the coroner's report. A rope boom across the weir was also out of service. It was found coiled up on the shore. This means that the department was not doing its job in looking after these things and seeing that they were there. One policeman turned up; the rest of the squad were somewhere else, rescuing somebody else. When a helicopter that had been used to give RAAF families free joy rides was needed, there was nobody to fly it out to the rescue scene. I would like to say that responsibility lies firmly in the lap of the government of the time, no matter who it was, and the people who were running the rescue. If they had been there the boy could have been saved. So let us get that straight right now.
As for the first question, I find that the police rescue squad certainly did arrive at the scene. However, it needs to be pointed out that the first rescue crew to arrive on the scene was a backup unit staffed by an off-duty officer. Apparently the main rescue unit was kilometres away, at Kambah Pool, attending to another accident. As for the second question, we find that the ACT Fire Brigade were not called to the scene because of the continuing feud between the Fire Brigade officers and the police rescue squad. We could end up with something like that right now. If you live on the south side and you happen to be burning in a car and they do not call the Fire Brigade, you will burn to death. Thank God the Fire Brigade will be able to get to people on the north side because they have to look after that side. God help you if you are on the south side, because of the bungling and not knowing who is supposed to do what.
MR SPEAKER: Relevance, Mrs Grassby.
MRS GRASSBY: It is exactly the same thing. The point was that they were not called because of the bungling of two people who felt that they could do better than somebody else. They both should have been called.
On the third question, we find that the RAAF helicopter nearby could not be used because there was no-one on duty to fly it. The sour irony of this was that the helicopter had been used for joy rides for RAAF families only hours earlier. As to the last question, rescue facilities in the area, like a flying fox, were minimal or non-existent at the time.
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