Page 385 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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It is hard to see, when looking at the North Curtin centre, why we did not previously have some arrangement which resulted in the coordination of our efforts. We can all point to certain factors that would have led to that. There has obviously been resistance from some of those services to being coordinated in the way in which they now are, and there is, no doubt, some resistance yet to be overcome. I do not, in saying that, indicate that there are not some very good reasons why we should consider very carefully such cooperation and coordination, particularly when it involves co-location in a single place. There may be arguments about that; but, in the circumstances where this particular emergency placed a challenge before the Territory, those concerned were able to meet that with great alacrity and with great accomplishment.
I was impressed, when I visited the North Curtin centre, by the great spirit of comradeship and common purpose which was clearly present in that place. There was obviously a great spirit of working together. People from different branches - ambulance officers, Fire Brigade officers, Bush Fire Council workers, emergency services personnel and even police - were present in the building at that time and they appeared to be working very hard to make sure that the best possible foot was put forward. I think they succeeded.
It is perhaps too early to say whether the entire experience of the new arrangements is perfect, whether there cannot be improvements, whether there should not be changes in the arrangements. I am sure that the follow-up report of Mr MacDonald, which we will see later today, will throw some more light on that subject and help us to refine the arrangements. I confess to having had reservations about some aspects of these matters, but I believe that we have made a considerable step forward in the arrangements that have been adopted, and I think we can build on those to see the best possible arrangement put in place. The tricky question, of course, remains the role of the police in such arrangements in the future. There is obviously a case for saying that they should be integral to any such arrangement; but it is very hard to see quickly how that can be done without some misgivings, and I think we have to talk a great deal more about that.
Mr Lamont talked at length about the way in which our emergency teams worked in New South Wales, how quickly they responded to the emergency, and how they were able to deal with their role in an independent fashion, very much as a coordinated and independent unit, and to fit in quickly with the New South Wales command structure to achieve a very positive result. Mr Lamont is quite right in saying that that resulted in the saving of both property and life in New South Wales.
At the height of the bushfires in New South Wales, on about 10 January this year, I understand that there were from the ACT, obviously a small jurisdiction, some four urban fire pumpers, four Rural Firefighting Service tankers, two urban fire tankers, four command vehicles and four four-wheel drive vehicles - a fair fleet, a fair flotilla of ACT equipment in New South Wales. They were being looked after by 31 Fire Brigade members, 23 Rural Firefighting Service members, 12 ACT emergency service members and two ACT ambulance paramedics. This is on top of the people back here in the ACT who were coordinating and supporting that effort by means of work at the North Curtin centre and elsewhere. I might mention, without wanting to detract from the bipartisan nature of the debate, that there was also from the ACT a helicopter with water bucket. I merely say that the helicopter, I am sure, was a very useful tool in dealing with that emergency in New South Wales.
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