Page 235 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 6 March 2007
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Mr Corbell was asked in question time: how does the commissioner report to the minister? The minister said, “Well, I talk to him directly.” Yet it is interesting that when you go to the organisational chart in the Emergency Services Agency’s business plan, which the minister released today, there is a layer that the minister forgot to inform the Assembly about. On page 7 of 24 of his document, between the Minister for Police and Emergency Services and the ACT Emergency Services Agency there exists this small line, very small line, called the Department of Justice and Community Safety.
So what the minister did not tell the Assembly at question time was that there is this impediment between him as the minister and the commissioner. It is interesting when you go to the website because you have got the Department of Justice and Community Safety organisation chart, with a chief executive and then two deputy chief executives, including one called “operations”. So we are about to go from an organisation where the head of the Rural Fire Service could talk to the commissioner and the commissioner could talk to the minister.
But now we are going to have a downgrade, and that is the reward for the volunteers in the RFS and the SES: their position of leadership has been downgraded by this government to a lesser-paid position. They are getting rid of some people and converting the deputy leaders into the leader position. The head of RFS will now report to the head of fire and rescue, which is a deputy commissioner position, which will then report to the commissioner, which will then report to the deputy chief executive, operations, which will then report to the chief executive, which will then report to the minister. So the government have virtually doubled the reporting chain of command that Mr Pratt sought information about and which the minister forgot clearly to tell the Assembly about.
Then let us go to the whole issue. At the press conference the minister said estimated savings were around $250,000 a year. Okay, fine. But what he did not tell the assembled gathering was how he is going to save the overrun of $5 million that the ESA has accumulated in each of the last two years. To give him credit he was not the minister then; Mr Hargreaves was. But somehow the ESA is now going to have to live within its means; that is the message. And that means savings of $5 million, or reductions of $5 million worth of spending. What we were not told was where that $5 million is coming from.
The minister went on to say that this was about more Indians and less chiefs. But we did not hear how many more Indians—no indication whatsoever in this document of how many more Indians. Indeed, you could actually make a case that we are getting two deputy chief commissioners, as there is a new one, and the minister claims we are losing the heads of the four services. But one of them is being promoted to run fire and rescue and the other is being promoted to run ambulance. The deputy chiefs of the existing services are then promoted to be the operational managers of those services. So the structure has not lost that many jobs at all. The amount of savings is not there; the minister has not detailed them, so where is the $5 million coming from? And, indeed, where are the extra Indians that he talked about?
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