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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3694 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

time and to take on board the recommendations of stakeholders with a view to building a more efficient and operationally responsive emergency organisation to replace the existing ESB. To that end the government should hold most of the funding for that emergency organisation until consultations with all relevant stakeholders have been completed.

The Liberal opposition believes that the new organisation should be put in place as soon as possible. It also believes that the government's current planning proposals could be much better. We have determined on many occasions-and we have a number of examples of this-that this government lacks a sense of urgency in relation to emergency matters. Going back to 2002, the government should have learned many lessons as a result of the December 2001 bushfires. However, because of certain weaknesses in the system, matters of an urgent operational nature sat unattended on the backburner.

The Liberal opposition wants to ensure that a similar bureaucracy that is also bound to fail does not replace the existing failed ESB bureaucracy. The McLeod recommendations, if adopted, would certainly meet that likely outcome. We have on the table a suggested new organisation for the family of emergency agencies that we have put up for adoption as a positive alternative to anything else we have seen or heard about. We have already circulated copies of the legislation and the reorganisation model to major bushfire fighting stakeholders-something that the government did not do with the McLeod report recommendations on the same issue. However, we are prepared to wait until after the roundtable discussions to which I referred earlier.

Given the urgency of this matter, the need to put this organisation in place and the need to ensure that we have a safer community, we hope to bring on debate on this issue in the Assembly as soon as possible. The Liberal opposition maintains that the May 2003 Benson audit report into the ESB is a far more relevant benchmark and a more apparent marker for change than McLeod's recommendations for emergency organisations and, in particular, the ESB. The valuable and accurate information that is available in that report and the advice of stakeholders should guide the government in redesigning, developing and training a new organisation in the shortest possible timeframe.

Not all the changes that have been identified will actually cost money. Many of the changes that are needed in the emergency organisations are cultural in nature and simply require good leadership and determination. So far we have seen a lot of

ad hoc suggestions and recommendations for new changes. We have, however, also seen a number of good recommendations. That clearly illustrates the government's lack of consultation with stakeholders. Ideas are being added and changes are being made haphazardly, which is not unusual for this government. There does not appear to be any pattern to the allocation of funding, which illustrates a lack of strategic direction. The lock, stock and barrel automatic acceptance of McLeod's recommendations only adds to the confusion.

We encourage the government to act expeditiously and urgently to ensure community safety. We also encourage the government to move in the correct sequence and to consult with all the right people. The government must brief Assembly members and members of the community on the strategic directions that it is taking to rebuild the ACT emergency management system. We welcome the provision of funding for new communications equipment and acknowledge that additional funding would help to

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