Page 1353 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 1993
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Rescue Services
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister for police. I refer to the restructuring of the police rescue services in the ACT. The Minister would be aware of the contention of the Australian Federal Police Association that a considerable saving could be made by assigning north side of Canberra road rescue to the police rescue service rather than leaving it with the present fire rescue service. On the assumption that the Minister has actually examined that proposal and ascertained the extent of any saving, could he advise the Assembly as to what the extent of that saving would be across the whole of his portfolio responsibility?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I and police management do not believe that there could be any savings by giving the full responsibility for road rescue in the ACT to the police. This is an ambit claim from the Police Association which basically says that we should leave all road rescue to the police. It is the debate that has been going on in the ACT since the 1970s, or as far back as human memory persists. The same debate has been going on in other States of Australia. The Government has taken a decision that road rescue functions will be performed by the Fire Brigade, on the basis that we have to train Fire Brigade officers to undertake that type of duty as a proper ancillary to their prime responsibility of firefighting. We have to have fire officers on standby at 3 o'clock in the morning at all of the stations around Canberra - - -
Mr Humphries: Why?
Mr De Domenico: Why?
MR CONNOLLY: In order to provide appropriate fire coverage, Mr Humphries, so that your constituents; houses are not burned down, and in order, Mr De Domenico, to provide standards of fire coverage which comply with the national standards of urban fire cover so that Canberra ratepayers pay fire insurance premiums which are based on metropolitan standards rather than the massively inflated fire insurance premiums which they would have to pay if they lived in an area which did not comply with Australian standards of fire coverage. So we have to have that resource out there. We can use it to also perform road rescue.
We also have a group of police officers who are on standby at 3 o'clock in the morning at Weston Creek now and who are also available to attend road rescue on the south side. They think there would be savings if they could also attend road rescue on the north side. We think it makes a lot more sense to have those police officers on the street doing general policing, crime duties, rather than this ancillary duty. So I do not believe that there are savings to be achieved by this proposal, and police management are of a similar view.
MR HUMPHRIES: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. On the assumption that there are no savings to be made, can the Minister tell the Assembly what loss to the government coffers the proposal by the Australian Federal Police Association would amount to? Can the Minister give me an indication of the financial extent of any change that that particular proposal would make?
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