Page 1440 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 1993
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(3) The inquiry be conducted by an independent inquirer, be appropriately resourced, and report to the Government before the end of 1993.
Mr Deputy Speaker, large changes have occurred in the ACT and its services - not just emergency services, but all sorts of social and other services - in the years since the ACT obtained self-government. This has been going on with particular vigour since self-government began because of the changed financial circumstances to which the Chief Minister just made some reference, but also for a longer period than that to take into account the reality that the ACT is, by comparison with other jurisdictions, somewhat generously funded. Those changes - changes very often targeted at efficiency and reduction in cost - are driven primarily by money, but they are also on some occasions driven by other factors. Before we in this Assembly go down the path of endorsing, or at least failing to question, any particular series of changes that might be begun in this community, we need to know what those factors are and how they make up the decision making process in respect of the future of, in this case, emergency services.
The key question we need to ask ourselves is whether the changes being proposed by the Government in respect in particular of the decision to phase out or reduce the capacity of the police rescue service to conduct road rescues in the ACT are capable of reducing cost without an unacceptable loss of quality in the services offered to the people of the Territory. Every change we make in this Territory, every change government makes in an administrative sense, which downsizes or streamlines services carries a risk that at the same time one actually reduces the quality of services. Sometimes you can achieve a reduction in cost and an increase in quality, but that situation is probably rare. For the most part, there is a trade-off between quality and cost, and my party fears that the trade-off between the cost and the quality of emergency services in this case is not being properly assessed or made. That is our fear, and it is the fear of many workers in emergency services in the ACT, particularly those who currently carry out police rescue services.
We also fear, and we have had much evidence of this in recent weeks, that trade union politics are a prominent factor in the decision the Government has made in this area. It is okay for governments to be involved in trade union politics, particularly when they are of the political flavour of this Government, but it is not okay for political factors to override commonsense and good management decisions, and that is a very real danger in this case.
When I talk about the political elements of this debate, I cannot fail to observe that the Firefighters Union enjoys easy access at the highest levels of this Government. On the other hand, the Minister for police, at least at one stage recently, refused even to meet and to speak with officers of the ACT executive of the Australian Federal Police Association. He said at the time that this was because there was a threat hanging over his head. I note that, despite other threats and an actual attack on the integrity of this Assembly - I am referring to lights going out - the Government did proceed to talk with the Electrical Trades Union over a period, notwithstanding threats hanging over its head. I have to ask myself why it is that access to the Government is barred by threat in the case of the Police Association but not in the case of the Electrical Trades Union. It is hard to resist the conclusion that there is some considerable degree of empire building going on in the restructuring of emergency services in the ACT.
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