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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 4701 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

way the emergency services operate in the ACT. The Liberal opposition has proposed the establishment of a number of new statutory authorities, without bureaucratic impositions such as those that currently exist. That is not what the government wants and it is not what the bureaucrats want, by the look of it, but it is what the firefighting and emergency services community wants.

This bill seeks a total breaking up of the agencies into a standalone structure, with each agency reporting directly to the minister through its own statutory board. Each agency will be streamlined to allow primacy of operational control and command, with fast and accurate decisions being made more possible. Fast, accurate and unencumbered decision making is fundamental to our motive with this bill. In addition, the Department of Justice and Community Safety will support each of these agencies, not supervise or oversee them. I ask members to compare these descriptions of how we intend to change our emergency agencies and the changes that our men and women in the field and up to the tactical headquarters level want against the status quo ESB and against what we understand to be the proposed ESA.

Finally, this bill allows for interoperability amongst all agencies through a series of operational procedures, ministerial systems and regular training programs that see the staff of these agencies come together regularly. Again, I stress that this bill was created after close consultation with experienced firefighters and emergency services personnel and, as Mr Smyth quite clearly pointed out, it is a model that has been circulated and a model that has been accepted broadly by many of the emergency services stakeholders and the experienced rural residents who have, in their own right, been fighting bushfires for a long time.

Whilst there has been a variation of opinion on the detail of what we are proposing, the great majority are in harmony-break up the ESB and create more independent structures, but without compromising interoperability. In order to achieve what the ACT community really wants, it has been necessary to create new legislation-the Fire, Emergency Services and Ambulance Authorities Bill 2003. A standalone bill was created for the task of restructuring the existing Emergency Services Bureau because it involved the creation of three new authorities, not a simple amendment of the current Emergency Services Bureau. That would have been tinkering at the edges-creating nothing, changing nothing, carrying on with the same failure.

If passed, consequential amendments will be needed to other legislation in a number of places in the bill: firstly, to the Bushfire Act 1936 to abolish the Bushfire Council and the power to appoint the Chief Fire Control Officer and make appropriate provision for the new authority's powers and those of its new chief executive; secondly, to the Emergency Management Act 1999 to replace the functions of the Director of Emergency Services and the Chief Officer of the Ambulance Services with those of the new emergency services authority chief executive and the new ambulance service chief executive of the metropolitan fire and ambulance authority, respectively; and, thirdly, to the Fire Brigade Act 1957 and the Fire Brigade Administration Act 1974 to replace the functions of the fire commissioner with those of the new fire brigade chief executive of the metropolitan fire and ambulance service authority. In addition, amendments would have to be made to the aforementioned acts to make reference to the new authorities and, where relevant, for the new authorities to break links with the ACT government departments to which they currently report.

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