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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2797 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

a dispassionate way. The emotional responses are, of course, a result of what has happened in our town. However, I think we need to find a more constructive way to channel those responses, as opposed to screaming at each other in this chamber.

The government's response to the McLeod report does make interesting reading. As has been said today by both the government and the opposition, the government will accept all 61 recommendations of McLeod. But reading through the government's response, I find that a number of recommendations have been agreed to in principle only. That seems to indicate that these are recommendations that will be further explored.

In fact, in response to recommendation 57, which is agreed to in principle, the government says that the "options outlined in the recommendation will be examined in detail"and "the reviews will occur in parallel with the development of the new authority's legislation", indicating, I believe, that the government thinks this recommendation needs further exploring and it may not be implemented in full or exactly as put forward by Mr McLeod. Unfortunately, this agreed in-principle idea has not been applied to the merger of ESB and associated arrangements into a new statutory authority.

Since the McLeod report was put down I have had many discussions, as I am sure all members of this place have, with different people involved in bushfire management throughout the ACT, and many of them have put forward to me concerns relating specifically to recommendation 53, and what will happen if this recommendation is implemented. I note that the government in its response to recommendation 53 says:

But the question arises: what if, through the consultation and this process with the stakeholders, the overwhelming response is: "We don't want a new statutory authority"? Is the government willing to listen to the outcomes of those discussions and perhaps be led down a different path that says a new statutory authority, in the model proposed by McLeod, is not the way to go; that the stakeholders, that the people on the front lines fighting our bushfires, actually want a different model?

I put that question and I hope the answer is that we are willing to listen and we are willing to move. If we continue to move forward without necessarily listening to the people who will be in the front line, I am very concerned about the impact that would have on our preparedness for not only the 2003-04 bushfire season but for bushfire seasons into the future.

One of the other interesting things I would like to bring forward is that the McLeod report included a discussion on a number of reports of previous ACT inquiries and reviews into emergency services, in particular urban fire services from the Attwood report of 1986 to the much quoted McBeth report of 1994 and the Glenn report of 1995. Many of these reports looked at the way bushfires are dealt with in the ACT and how the different operational services come together.

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