Page 182 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 6 March 2007
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this is the second of the 2006 bills. One thing in this bill that is worthy of note, because it is topical and will continue to be topical, is that schedule 2 part 2.1, amendment [2.2] omits the definition of “emergency services authority” from the Legislation Act 2001 following the abolition of the authority by the Administrative (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2006.
It is worth pointing out that this is another example of where the Stanhope Labor government is getting its priorities wrong. Did the serious and devastating bushfires of 2001 and even more so of 2003 not give the government a message that emergency services need to be able to be delivered without being buried in bureaucracy as they now are? It seems as though it will only get worse. Did the serious and devastating storms in the last month not give the government the same message?
When will the government learn from these lessons? How many more serious and devastating natural disasters will Canberra have to endure before the Stanhope government sees some sense? It seems as though the government is more interested in creating bureaucracies than it is about ensuring the safety and security of the citizens of Canberra. This is yet is another example of this government’s arrogance and it is another example of this government refusing to listen to respected expert advice.
Did Coroner Doogan, in her coronial inquest into the four deaths and four fires of January 2003, not recommend that the Emergency Services Authority be removed from the Department of Justice and Community Safety and transformed into an independent statutory authority reporting directly to the responsible minister? Did the McLeod inquiry into the operational responses to the 2003 bushfires not make a similar recommendation?
Did the Chief Minister in tabling the McLeod inquiry report in this place on 19 August 2003 not state, “The government agrees that a new independent and better integrated and coordinated emergency services organisation should be created to provide the opportunity for greater and more effective operational capacity and capability”? This is another example of the Stanhope government’s wrong priorities.
The Stanhope Labor government is happy enough squandering money on unnecessary and unwanted projects such as the jail we have to have, the arboretum we have to have and an Al Grassby statue that it seems we have to have, but it does not seem interested in properly funding services that ensure the safety and security of the people of Canberra.
We have to ask ourselves, “Where are the Stanhope government’s priorities?” I will tell members where they are. They are in the too-hard basket. It is worthy making these points in relation to this bill and in relation to the old Emergency Services Authority as they highlight the government’s lack of priorities and its unwillingness to listen to expert advice.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (12.16), in reply: This bill carries on the technical amendments program that continues to develop a simpler, more coherent and accessible statute book for the territory through minor legislation changes. It is an efficient mechanism to take care of non-controversial minor or technical amendments
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