Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4789 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

Claim: Provide a brigade level support arrangement for both agencies.

This statement is devoid of meaning.

It goes on and on, with page after page of claim and counterclaim. Mr Speaker, there is one issue that I would also like to raise. Under "Our Objections", the paper states:

To begin with, placing volunteers into Brigades which operate under bushfire brigade legislation renders them bushfire brigades. Claims that the ACTES will retain its current identity are ridiculous. According to the well-known analogy - if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and swims like a duck, then it's a duck - ACTES will lose its identity and its culture if the proposed dissection and dispersal goes ahead.

MR SPEAKER: Order! It being 45 minutes after the commencement of Assembly business, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 77.

MR BERRY (11.17): Pursuant to standing order 77(e), I move:

That the time allotted to Assembly business be extended by 30 minutes.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

MR OSBORNE: The paper goes on:

The volunteers will lose the organisational structure which is the essence of the Emergency Service Australia-wide and they will lose their focus through their regions and region Controllers. ACTES team leaders will be forced to report to bushfire brigade deputy captains, who will not have the knowledge, nor the training, to properly administer their needs. All ACTES volunteers will be forced to submit to a brigade commander appointed from the bushfire brigade who will have neither the expertise nor the interest in ACTES to foster its interests. They will lose corporate spirit and they certainly will not be keen to spend the average $1,000 extra per annum it will cost them to cover the extra distances to attend training. ACTES will cease to exist.

It is claimed that improved response times will result. This is a nonsense. The bushfire sheds are located out of suburbia, in rural areas, for good reason - that is where the bushfire brigade sphere of activity is. It is obvious that to place them in the centre of suburbia would lead to inefficiencies in bushfire service provision and response times. The exact opposite holds for ACTES. Bushfire operational support is only one of our roles and well down the list at that.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .