Page 2536 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 October 1992
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The matter of public importance before us also mentions the excessive expenditure on road rescue services and apparent duplication of services and equipment. The question needs to be asked: What level of emergency services does the ACT need? Would a single coordinated service provide a better response in road rescue situations than the separated services? While the ACT branch of the Australian Federal Police Association quotes two reports, by Major-General R.A. Grey and R.E. Rooks, which appear to have given the police primary responsibility for road rescue, what other reports should we be looking at for models on which to base rescue services in Canberra?
The Minister has further articulated today what happened at the accident scene in McKellar. Despite the glaring problems with demarcation disputes, the road rescue service in the ACT appears at most times to operate successfully. I am not criticising the people who are involved and who are devoted to their careers. Obviously, that same commitment to their jobs has given them a bias on the issue of who should have charge of road rescue in the ACT, and both have arguments to support their cases. Like the feuding couple of my earlier example, the two services need counselling and support, and perhaps in the end an independent and agreed decision.
I think the ACT to date has reached the stage where earlier efforts in counselling and support and easing through the process of settling the question of who has primary responsibility for road rescue are achieving little; nor are blanket directives to get on with the job and put aside the rivalries. What is needed is a solution which includes a quantifying of the problem, a rationalising of the services if that is needed, and a coordination agenda that brings the police and Fire Brigade officers together to work towards the same goal - the saving of more lives on our roads, not the fighting over who should have been called first.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (3.16): This matter of public importance obviously flows from the concern raised in the media this morning and the Canberra Times editorial concerning duplication on road rescue, but I think it highlights that there are two issues. There is the underlying issue of how we best provide this service and the particular incident on Sunday.
This Government is not in the business of defending the indefensible, and as soon as I became aware of the allegations relating to Sunday's incident I called for full written reports from the directors of both services. I insisted that they be on my desk by the opening of business this morning. They were; and it was clear, as I indicated in question time, that police procedures had not been followed. The police were quite frank to me in that. The Acting Chief Police Officer has copped that on the chin. He accepts that what happened was unacceptable, both to government and to the broader community. He has taken upon himself the responsibility of sorting that out within the police service, which is right and proper, and has given me an assurance that it will not recur. So, in the particular incident a clear instruction that the fire service be advised of road accidents on the north side and, since my intervention in September, of a secondary response capability - an indication that in every case one service notify the other - had not been followed. That was indefensible and unacceptable, and I am advised by the senior police officer that it will not recur.
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