Page 1424 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 1993
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Is the Minister further aware that the bid seeks, for example, $5,600 for sleeping-bags, $400 for water-bottles, a chest freezer, a dishwasher and a chip maker - a total in bids of $215,657? I ask the Minister: Did he mislead the Assembly when he told it that a reduced police rescue service would be retained for off-road rescue in the Territory? Secondly, how much of this bid of $215,000-odd has been taken into account in his assertion that the scaling down of the police rescue service would save $400,000?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, members opposite have got themselves all agitated today over ambit claims. Mrs Carnell got agitated over an ambit claim and Mr Humphries also seems to have come across an ambit claim circulating from one internal officer to another internal officer within an agency. If Mr Humphries recalled the days when he was a Minister of a department he would recall that agencies under his command were regularly going up the line saying, "Next in command, I need lots more money in the next financial year". I have not seen that minute, but I can tell Mr Humphries and indeed the officer who wrote that minute that it is based on a fundamentally wrong premise. There is no proposal - no proposal that I am aware of from my detailed discussions of this matter with both the assistant commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Mr Dawson, and the director of Fire and Emergency Services, Mr Gaskill; no proposal that I am aware of from discussions with those two senior officers - that the police's role in bush rescue be diminished.
I turn to the Emergency Service, Madam Speaker. There were chuckles opposite. It was said that members of the Emergency Service are going to get sleeping-bags; they are going to get chip heaters; they are going to get this and that. "Ha, ha, ha", say the Liberals, "Isn't that outrageous". The Emergency Service, Madam Speaker, comprises a large number of men and women in Canberra who give up their time to provide a support for this community. When you have a storm in Canberra, when you have a flood, when you have a major accident such as the plane crash at Narrabundah, those men and women give up their time, usually in the middle of the night and usually in appalling weather conditions, to go out and serve the community. We resource them with sleeping-bags - - -
Mr Humphries: We do pay them to work, you know.
MR CONNOLLY: No, we do not. We have a small number of paid staff, but the Emergency Service workers are volunteers. They give up their time, usually to go into dangerous and unpleasant situations at appalling times of the morning, and they do it for nothing because they want to serve their community. We do resource them. We do actually provide them with sleeping-bags when they are in the bush. The Liberals go, "Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Isn't that a waste of resources". Perhaps they would prefer these volunteers not to have sleeping-bags, not to have facilities.
Madam Speaker, this again shows the inanity of this Opposition. No doubt, we will be providing some additional resources to our volunteers in the Emergency Service next year as funds permit. We try to do what we can for that very dedicated group of volunteers. They provide an essential backup to the police in bush rescue. At the moment, when there is a major bush rescue the police rescue squad have command. That squad - we will probably call it the emergency squad - will continue to have command and will continue to do the bulk of
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