Page 2542 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 October 1992
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What I said holds true. It makes more sense; a small, specially trained unit has a greater opportunity to become good at what they do. If you divide the units, everyone gets less training. If you train everybody in the police force, or everybody in the Fire Brigade, or any other service, you will guarantee that you do not have specialists. I have been trained in the police force and have an understanding about specialties within the police force. It was said by Mr Connolly that, basically, the duplication of the services is not really going to be a money problem. That simply does not make any sense. Naturally enough, if you have two services working in the same area and seemingly responsible for the same area, one to the north of Canberra and one to the south of Canberra, it is going to cost more money. Any statement to the contrary is obviously illogical, and one would wonder why someone would make it.
There is one major factor that I have not heard mentioned yet. When we have accidents there is usually a legal concern. That may not be the major thing that you are trying to handle at the time; you are trying to look after the safety of people involved in accidents and in the surrounding environment. But there comes a time, with most accidents, when you need people to give evidence about what happened. It is obvious that police are well trained in the giving of evidence.
Mrs Grassby: So are firemen. They have to give evidence, too, in court. You are saying that the police are and that the firemen are not.
MR STEVENSON: Mrs Grassby said, "So are firemen". I think it is fairly obvious that police do a lot more work in courts and are far more trained in the giving of evidence than are Fire Brigade officers. The number of Fire Brigade officers that would go to court - - -
Mrs Grassby: I would not like to bet you on that one.
MR STEVENSON: Yes, I would be happy to bet you on that. How much do you want to make it? I do not hear a reply. I think the reason for no reply is obvious. It is an absurdity.
MADAM SPEAKER: I think the reason is that you should be addressing your remarks to the Chair, Mr Stevenson. I would ask you to do that.
MR STEVENSON: I absolutely agree, Madam Speaker. Perhaps Mrs Grassby should not be interjecting while I am speaking. There is always an opportunity to mention both sides, not just one. Police are trained to give evidence. Coroners investigating serious accidents want to know exactly what happened. On occasions I have been told that because people were not trained in the giving of evidence the evidence was not able to be given as it should have been. That, unfortunately, can happen if people are not trained in this area.
We have to look at costs, but mainly we need to worry about the safety of people. But would this not come down to how well trained the rescue teams are? If we split up training among different services and all members of a service, does that not reduce the specialty training? It is like police SWAT teams. Obviously enough, they are specialists. If you try to train everybody, they are not going to get the specialist training and they are also not going to have the experience. The moment you start to put different units into rescue work you divide the experience. Look at how many Fire Brigade officers and how many police
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