Page 3318 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 October 2006
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Here we have an email on the 9th that the inspections are not going to start until the 16th. We are already into the fire season. It continues:
The small matrix attached is the approach we intend to follow in relation to further assessment.
They had a pre-season workshop. They did not inform the volunteers until after the start of the fire season. But it does not address the issue as to when the government knew. When was that document created? It was created on Wednesday, 23 February at 2:24:03 in the afternoon—not eight months ago; not February 2006; not this year. It was created 20 months ago. That is negligence. That is a lack of ministerial responsibility. For 20 months the Stanhope government has been aware that 14 vehicles out of 23 are greater than 25 per cent beyond the national standard.
How do we know this? When things are emailed out, a little thing comes with it—if you know where to click—called the properties box. I seek leave to table the properties box for the ACT Rural Fire Service vehicle distribution word document that was distributed.
Mr Corbell: Have you any idea how childish you sound?
MR SMYTH: Do you know how lax you have been?
Leave not granted.
MR SMYTH: Again the government fails to have this document tabled. Here it is. It was created on Wednesday, 23 February 2005 at 2:24:03 pm. That is failure. That is ministerial neglect. That is the neglect of a government that did not care about the rural service volunteers that they sent out in these vehicles and the community that they now seek to delude by saying that they we are light years ahead. “We are light years ahead in terms of preparation.” That is what the minister said.
Mr Pratt talked about adequate preparation. Clearly that has not happened. We have looked at the RFS fleet. That was the second point he talked about. We have looked at the replacement of the fleet which this government has failed in. He has mentioned the TRN—the trunk radio network. According to people who were on scene at the incident at Mount Clear, they had to use their own phones to communicate with each other because communications in that area were so bad. The reason the TRN and FireLink were put in place was to overcome these difficulties.
We appreciate this. We recognised this back in, I think 1999-2000. We called it the emergency services budget. There was money for communications; there was money for vehicles; and there was money for upgrades. You can see some of the benefit of that in the 28 vehicles that came on line in the life of the former government—not like the eight vehicles that have come on line in the life of this government.
TRN and FireLink were to go ahead to fix up those problems. We have known for years that the old radio network did not work in areas like Mount Clear. That is why we spent tens of millions of dollars on a single select tender—so we could have it quickly. What season was it meant to be up for? I think it was the 2004-05 season. No, it was not—
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