Page 2620 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 June 2005
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stalled program was supposed to ensure a significant increase in the current number of 28 units—that they be raised, trained, equipped and fielded before the next bushfire season.
In budget estimates the minister failed to justify, when questioned, the rationale for the decision to drop the program. When asked as to what had changed in the bushfire risk analysis that justified not continuing the momentum of this vital program, the minister chose not to answer. We have already talked tonight about filibustering and evasion. That was another example of where a committee of inquiry was not able to ask a logical question and get a truthful answer.
As to whether the ACT can afford to reverse or postpone bushfire risk programs, although a good deal of the long-neglected forest and bushland fuel hazard was eradicated in the January 2003 fires, there is still a considerable hazard around and through the ACT. I would remind members that the bushfire drought index measure is still extremely high, regardless of the rain and everything else. The minister has also demonstrated his disinterest in emergency management by indicating that any delay in bringing on line the remainder of the CFUs simply presents no concern at all. That is an astounding statement for a minister to make, given the recent history in the ACT.
I turn now to the ESA headquarters. There is a blatant omission in the 2005-06 budget either for the funding of these headquarters or for at least a significant upgrade. As I say, we would certainly support, as the better of two options, the upgrading of the existing facilities. One of McLeod’s major recommendations was as follows:
The ACT Government should take urgent steps to upgrade the Emergency Services Bureau’s operational command and control facilities—either by carrying out a major refurbishment of the existing facility at Curtin or, preferably, by locating to a more suitable alternative site …
A major upgrade with a better command and control system and better facilities, so that all of the agencies operating there can operate in cohesion, is what is required. All the feedback is that we are still short of the benchmark. The government has so far failed to either upgrade the existing headquarters or to construct new headquarters. We are hoping the government will revisit this issue.
There are a number of unanswered questions that we have now had to put to estimates. Again, these questions were not answered in estimates at all and answers have still not been received. We are going to give them back to the minister and get those questions answered one way or the other. We had to put about 61 questions because we were simply blocked from having those issues discussed in the estimates process. Given the 2003 bushfire disaster, the Canberra community deserves answers to those questions. They are definitely not getting answers from the Stanhope government in the normal way they govern, which is in a rather arrogant fashion.
It is not our business and it is not the community’s business to make sure that these capabilities are working properly, particularly those recommended by McLeod. I do not have a great deal of support for the McLeod inquiry—I am on record as having said that—but at least the McLeod inquiry, soft as it was, made some rather useful
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