Page 2543 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 October 1992
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officers over a period of a year get the practical experience which is necessary to be good at these things. The more people you train, the more you give responsibility to, the less specialised ability you are going to have. I think it was important to bring that up in this debate. I think it is equally obvious that it has not been resolved. There are important questions that remain. We all understand that, while physical safety is paramount, specialty training is important, and it may not be best to break that up between two services.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (3.44): This issue has all the hallmarks of a classic demarcation dispute, the resolution of which is not served by taking one particular side or the other in the course of this debate. There is a lot of history in this rescue area. Some may remember the early days in Sydney. I first recall the cliff rescue squad under a fellow called Sergeant Tyson. It was involved in rescue and the service grew by one degree or another from that point for the New South Wales Police.
In those days the fire services were fairly well dominated by the insurance companies around this country. They were more interested in fire insurance savings than they were in other aspects of services which fire brigades might provide to the community. As time passed there were different developments in other States and in other countries. In Western Australia, I am informed, the fire service, in the urban areas anyway, dealt with these sorts of things. In Victoria, in the metropolitan area of Melbourne, the fire service dealt with them. In some other States, such as New South Wales, the police were involved in them. There has been the development of these services in the ACT which other members spoke of earlier.
It does no good, Madam Speaker, in these sorts of debates to come out and sing the praises of one side or the other. Resolution of the difficulties has to be sorted out in the management context. Mr Connolly has indicated that he has taken steps to change the way that these services are being delivered in the ACT with a view to resolution of the conflict, unlike the approach of the former Liberal Alliance Government which locked conflict in place and set it in concrete. Their agenda was largely decided upon by the recommendations of the Priorities Review Board report which Mrs Carnell referred to. The Labor Government's approach to these matters will be quite different. We are about trying to resolve the difficulties between the parties and making good use of resources which have long been available to both services. You cannot ignore history in setting out to resolve this particular dispute. There are entrenched views and I think I heard some of them being talked about here today.
There is one other aspect of services that might be provided to road accident victims which has not been mentioned here today. The Ambulance Service has been pretty well overlooked. These days they are dependent on the provision of support services by the fire service and the police service in the performance of their duties to the community. This is not only about rescuing from torn motor vehicles people who are injured; it is also about cutting vehicles up and that sort of stuff. The Ambulance Service also depends on these services for assistance to ambulance officers at the scene. They handle equipment and those sorts of things - lifting and helping generally at accident scenes. It is very important in the industrial relations context that we develop a cooperative model which has the full support of all of the players.
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