Page 1456 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 1993
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MR DE DOMENICO: The inquiry commissioned in 1986 by Gordon Scholes. Nothing you have said to this house this afternoon has convinced the majority of members in this Assembly that anything has changed. I recall that just after that there was an appointment of the then commissioner, Bill Kerr. Bill Kerr was not allowed to do his job because the Firefighters Union, of which Mr Berry was secretary, refused to negotiate with or talk to the commissioner. That was in 1986.
Let us have a look at some of the other things that have been said. Ms Szuty alluded just before to the Priorities Review Board.
Mr Berry: And when you were representing the Insurance Council you refused to pay workers comp, too.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mr De Domenico has the floor. Continue, Mr De Domenico.
MR DE DOMENICO: I will not even give Mr Berry the courtesy of responding to that, because it is not true. Let me refer now to what the Grants Commission found, Madam Speaker. This is 1986-87, by the way, Mr Connolly, because you alluded to just one document. Let us have a look at what was said by the Grants Commission on urban fire services. Is that okay?
Mr Connolly: Yes, in 1986.
MR DE DOMENICO: Just hold on a tick. Just sit down and listen. It found that the ACT spent $4.035m on urban fire services. That amounted to $15.50 per capita. The Australian standard expenditure per capita was $5.38. Taking into account the particular characteristics of Canberra, the commission allowed that an additional expenditure of $7.51 per capita was reasonable to cover factors such as the higher level of government ownership of land and buildings and the difficulty of offsetting costs of fire protection through insurance company contributions, a greater need for protection services due to grass and bushland areas between population centres, and an above standard number of fire stations per capita due to the planned layout. Then what did it say? It said that the ACT still spent 20 per cent more than the Australian standard, plus the disability allowance. Of the Fire Brigade's recurrent budget, 85 per cent is represented by wages.
What did the board recommend? The board recommended a number of things to achieve maximum rationalisation of resources and effective coordination. It went on and on. So we have a number of other reports that Mr Connolly refused to talk about. Obviously it proves that the Government has been aware of this very obvious disparity for over a year. This begs the question, as Mr Humphries says, as to why the Government is persisting in its ridiculous attempts to reduce the resources of an efficient and most important community service. Mr Connolly stood on his feet and said, "Mr Kaine and Mr Westende and some others said things". What they were saying was that not only should you act decisively, Mr Connolly, but also you should act correctly. Nothing that you have said in this house this afternoon goes to prove that you have acted correctly.
Mr Humphries said - I think it bears repeating because it has been related on a number of occasions - that the Fire Brigade has infiltrated the ACT Labor Party and has influenced government policy. There is no doubt about that.
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