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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (16 November) . . Page.. 3527 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

Mr Kaine just commented on the ambulance service levy provisions in the Emergency Management Bill 1998. It is totally inappropriate that a money Bill be included in the emergency management provisions. The whole idea behind the Bill was to address the structures and the forces that would be brought to bear in the case of a declared emergency; not just a crisis, not a small scale emergency, but a declared one. The provision of what is essentially, as Mr Kaine quite aptly described it, an insurance scheme within the context of legislation governing a declared emergency is quite inappropriate.

It is ,we believe, a money Bill. It is also inconsistent with the Government's own approach in terms of revenue. The Minister has said to me in an answer to questions in estimates committees that the Government puts all of its money into a bucket, and there is no relationship between the revenue collected and an activity. Here we have an exercise where it would appear to be directly related, but I do not see its relevance. I would urge the Minister to consider the recommendation of the committee that the ambulance levy should have its own piece of legislation. I also strongly support having separate ambulance service legislation.

Mr Moore: Why?

MR HARGREAVES: If the Minister will just hold his water for a little while, he might find out why. This service has a history of going from one portfolio to another. It also has a wider set of responsibilities than just its activity within a declared emergency. Indeed, we do not have too many declared emergencies in the ACT - certainly none that I can remember in my time. It would seem to me to be quite inappropriate that we have a set of legislative provisions governing absolute disasters and then have enabling legislation for supporting services included in that when for nine-tenths of its time it has nothing to do with that.

It also heralds the Government's intention, quite openly declared, of collapsing all the emergency services into one piece of legislation. Again, I disagree with declared emergency services being all folded in together. We all know that the Ambulance Service has been part of the general administrative services in its early life. It has been part of the health industry and it is now part of the emergency industry. My own feelings are that the Ambulance Service is a health related service, but I can understand why people would like to have it connected to the Emergency Services Bureau. However, it does not exclusively belong to the Emergency Services Bureau. It works hand in glove with Health, and quite rightly it should have legislation of its own. If it has its own legislation, it matters not which Minister has responsibility for that service.

As I indicated earlier, the Government has signalled its intention to collapse all the emergency services' arms into one piece of legislation. That includes the elimination of the Fire Brigade as a unique service and the incorporation of it into the legislation here. I think that is ill considered. It takes away the uniqueness of the service. I believe it will also detrimentally affect the provision of services in the ACT if the Fire Brigade Act is

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