Page 2541 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 October 1992
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The great problem we have is that we must take into account shift work and whatever. As I am sure everybody who has had any experience in first aid would know, theory is one thing but practice is what it is all about. You can learn for years and years how to do it, but unless you do it and do it regularly your training is of very little use. I am sure that, if any of us here were unfortunate enough to be involved in or to have our families involved in a road accident, we would want somebody who did not just have the theory but had the practical knowledge that goes with having done the job regularly. If we have 26 accidents a year it is important that we have a small number of people involved, people who therefore have experience.
I am not suggesting for a moment that that should be the AFP or the Fire Brigade. What I am suggesting, as a casual observer, is that training 13 people and giving them experience and so on is substantially easier and more effective than training 230. Equally, I could easily be wrong on this, but anybody looking at those figures would assume that to be the case. You would also assume that it is inappropriate in Canberra, in a small city, with 26 accidents last year - and that is 26 too many - to have two fully equipped services. Therefore, it would seem appropriate right now to make a decision on who does the job, on who has the absolute responsibility for doing the job, and then take into account what the Priorities Review Board said and appropriately organise cooperation between the two services. Obviously, it cannot be in the hands of one group or the other. Obviously, when an accident happens two minutes from a fire station, we are not going to let the people bleed, as was suggested. Obviously, there must be cooperation between the services; but you must give one service the absolute authority. You must have somebody in charge. If you do not, you end up with the problems you saw on Sunday.
MR STEVENSON (3.36): First of all, I think I should declare an interest in this debate. My father was a fireman. Perhaps, as I was a policeman, that balances the issue.
There are some clear issues that we should look at. The first is that we do not need police rescue or Fire Brigade units necessarily tearing to accidents to rescue people from them. One of the major requirements at any accident, as Mrs Carnell mentioned, is to look after the physical well-being of the person. It is not a good idea to start ripping a car apart or to start moving a patient before you know what is wrong with them. That requires medical help first. So, basically, what we are waiting for at an accident is qualified and competent medical personnel to say, "Yes, it is okay at this time to rescue the person from the accident". Granted, it is a good idea to get there early if you need to keep other vehicles or the crowd away, or whatever.
The second point is that rescue is a specialty. The more practice you have at it, the more experienced you are, the better you will be. A police rescue unit of 13 full-time members would be better trained than all members of the Fire Brigade.
Mr Berry: You are doing it like the Liberals. You want to lock in concrete the division. Hopeless! All just for a few votes.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Berry says that I would want to lock in concrete the division, and then mentions that it is all for a few votes. Why is it that Labor members in particular think, when you start making logical statements about issues, that it has to be taken to be some sort of a political thing?
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