Page 2031 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2006
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threat that finally impacted on the suburban edge. So do not simply sheet it home to the emergency services and blame it all on the previous government. By January 2003 you had been in power for sufficient time—
Mr Corbell: Eighteen months.
MR PRATT: Eighteen months is sufficient time to at least do something better than you did. Your performance in January 2003 was dismal in terms of emergency management. You did not even try and improve one millimetre.
Mr Corbell: Seven years. For seven years it was neglected.
MR PRATT: Okay, yes, the previous government had left a legacy in which there were weaknesses—of course—and the opposition has always sheeted that home. But do not simply say that over 18 months you were incapable of picking up any measure of your duty in emergency management.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (10.42): I welcome the admission from Mr Pratt that the Liberal Party bears responsibility for its failure to properly resource the Emergency Services Bureau in the seven years that it was in office, because that is the only time we have ever heard that from them. We welcome that.
Mr Pratt: No, it is not; I said that in February 2003.
MR CORBELL: It is lovely to hear it again then, Mr Pratt. Mr Pratt suggests that I am blaming the then, to use his words, dysfunctional ESB and sheeting it home to them.
Mr Pratt: And to use the Auditor-General’s words—
MR CORBELL: No, I am not sheeting it home to them, Mr Pratt; I am sheeting it home to you—not to them, to you. They did the work that they could do with the tools that they had.
I am amazed, even though I have other involvement in the emergency services through volunteer activity, at some of the issues I have discovered since I have been a minister. The one that is most glaring and obvious to me is the VHF radio communications system. That system is a museum piece. It is a museum piece now, it was a museum piece three years ago, and it was a museum piece eight years ago. No-one else in this country uses it; no-one else in this country uses one any more. They sit in museums—literally in museums. The ESA has had to bring someone out of retirement from Queensland to maintain the thing. Unlike those opposite, we have taken steps to replace that system, and that process is well under way.
Mr Pratt: Well under way three years later.
MR CORBELL: The ACT Fire Brigade now does not use that system, the ACT Ambulance Service does not use that system, the ACT Rural Fire Service is having capability developed for that system, and they use both, as does the ACT State
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