Page 3326 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 October 2006
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volunteer bushfire brigade. Next year it will be five years that I have been a member of that brigade, so it is not some fly-by-night, flash-in-the-pan commitment. For me, it is a long-term commitment and one that I take very seriously. When I talk to, work with and trust my wellbeing to other people in that brigade, I know what they are thinking and feeling, I know the commitment that they take seriously to protecting their community, colleagues, friends and neighbours and I know that when you look at where we are now and when you look at where we were before 2003 we are light years ahead. I stand by that.
I was involved in the fires in 2003. I saw the fire fuel levels for myself in 2003. I responded to the fire in the Namadgi national park on 9 January, the morning after the night before, the day after the fire started. I know what the conditions were then and I saw how they deteriorated, how our emergency services coped and where the pressures were throughout that period. I take that experience with me when I sit down as minister and look at what is going right and what is not going right in our emergency services.
Mr Pratt: You did not know much about the truck fleet.
MR CORBELL: I do not know what that was, Mr Pratt, but I encourage you to say it out loud.
Mr Pratt: I said that you did not know much—
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, I want to outline to members why I can say with confidence that we are light years ahead and I want to show those opposite why this motion by them today is the pathetic piece of political posturing that it is. I want to draw members’ attention to the full range of things that this government has done since the 2003 fire disaster.
I refer to the completion of the strategic bushfire management plan; the development of the Emergencies Act itself; the development of a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear plan for the ACT; the development of a pandemic plan for the ACT; the development of an evacuation plan for the ACT; the purchase of new vehicles for all the emergency services, an issue I will go back to in some detail later, including a special operations support unit for the ACT Ambulance Service, six new ambulances for the ambulance service, four compressed air foam system tankers for the ACT Fire Brigade, six of those tankers for the ACT Rural Fire Service, the first of their kind in the country, two new pumpers for the urban fire brigade, one new tanker and two new light units for the ACT Rural Fire Service, a new hazardous materials incident support vehicle for the ACT Fire Brigade, six new command units for the ACT State Emergency Service, and 22 slip-on firefighting units made available to rural lessees through the ACT Rural Fire Service; new equipment for the ACT Ambulance Service, including new stretchers and new cardiac monitors; the implementation of a third comcen operator for the ACT Ambulance Service to meet peak demand workloads; the implementation of a new computer-aided despatch system for our communications centre; the first application of the geocoded national address file in the country; and a new trunk digital radio network for all the services, another point, I will come back to later.
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