Page 1970 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2006
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in accumulated numbers by at least 40 police short of the strength in 2008-09 to meet the national average. We will fall at least 40 police short, because we must also consider attrition over the next three years, something which the AFPA and I have no confidence that this government will plug. The attrition rate on top of the figures that we have calculated will mean that we are going to be nowhere near meeting the national average benchmark standard by 2008-09.
It appears that the Stanhope government have finally caved in to pressure in terms of at least the welcome 60 additional police. They have caved in to pressure from this opposition on additional police numbers and they have also, of course, caved in to pressure from the AFPA and, I would presume, Mr Keelty. But all of this will go to hell and back in a basket if this government does not tighten up the police agreement. It is no good getting additional police, wasting your money buying police, if you do not have the agreement reformed so as to allow you to ensure that those additional police are tasked in the way that they should be tasked and you can account for them.
I turn to the ESA. The transfer of the ESA to JACS is a complete travesty. It goes completely against commonsense, the McLeod report and the Auditor-General’s report of May 2003. This government spent millions of dollars, money it has just chucked down the drain, on establishing the ESA as a separate agency. It is now going to throw away all that investment by transferring the ESA back into a public service management arrangement. More to the point, that will not address the serious questions about the ESA’s financial and project management administration, particularly of new communications and capital expenditure indicating serious waste.
I will have a lot more to say later about the transfer of the ESA to JACS, but for now let us just say that this transfer will cost more than simply dollars. It will come at the serious expense of this community’s safety. What the government expects to save on transferring the department to the administrative controls of JACS it will lose on the ability of the ESA to act as an autonomous, responsive emergency agency and will seriously hamper the ability of the ESA to respond independently to issues of community safety.
Let us look at other priorities within the ESA. This government has failed in the 2006-07 budget to provide urgent funding for programs such as the stalled community fire units program. While there is some funding in this budget for front-line equipment, there certainly is a huge lack of commitment to what is really needed to ensure the ESA and the emergency services in general are able to function to full capacity without bureaucratic hindrance.
I turn to roads. As anticipated, we have a $412 million blow-out for the GDE, the fourth blow-out that I have counted in four years, which must now further starve the funding of routine maintenance and upgrades. It will suck money away from other essential roads.
Mr Smyth: On time and on budget!
MR PRATT: That is right, Mr Smyth. There is a distinct lack of funding for other major road upgrades and maintenance. There is no funding for much-needed road duplication, such as of Tharwa Drive, which the community has been pleading for. The cost blow-outs due to this government’s procrastination and mismanagement have totally drained
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