Page 507 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 14 March 2007
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Canberra community to respond when you do not have the system in place to deliver? It is beyond me. The business plan continues, and on every page there are things to be looked at.
The minister spoke about our relationship with other areas. A section on page 7 entitled “Local and Regional Relationships” states:
Canberra is in a unique position regionally as the major urban area in a predominantly New South Wales rural community.
That is the only mention of New South Wales, the effect we have on it and the effect that it can have on us. The document goes on to state:
Within Canberra, we maintain a special relationship with the Australian Government through the close working relationships with Emergency Management Australia, the National Capital Authority, the Department of Transport and Regional Services and as partners in the Emergency Service Funding Agreement, the Department of Finance and Administration.
I looked very closely to establish what our special relationship with the New South Wales RFS and the New South Wales SES was, but it does not exist because it is not in the document. Because we do not have the structure right we cannot do this properly. Appendix B on page 19 shows that there will be fewer arrangements per annum. There is a section on risk that states that we have to plan better for risk, yet I have been told that two of the risk assessment officers are also going to go.
This plan is a recipe for disaster, a recipe that is endorsed by the minister. The document deals also with the chain of command. Again the minister says, “It is okay because it is justified in legislation.” But he forgets to tell the people that, in the chain of command on page 7 of the business plan, between the minister and the ACT Emergency Services Agency, there is a small box entitled “Department of Justice and Community Safety”.
The minister did not even stand up in this chamber and state that his own structure, as outlined on page 7 of his business plan, reflects an enormous impediment between him and the people on the ground—an impediment called the department. The bean counters will get in the way, as they have often done in these matters, because planning for emergencies is an inexact science. You have to plan for the worst and hope for the best. What we are planning for here is a best-case scenario. This government will cut the cloth of ACT emergency management to fit the financial disaster that it has created, which has seen a number of deficits and continuing doubt over its ability to manage the budget.
Let us face it: Mr Corbell got it wrong when he was minister for education, and he was moved. Education is probably the most senior of all the portfolios outside that of Chief Minister, but he got the flick. He got it wrong in health where, because of his failure, he now carries the title of the minister who had the longest elective surgery waiting list in the history of the ACT. He made mistakes in planning and now he is making a monumental mistake in the restructure of the Emergency Services Authority to put in a bureaucratic structure, not one that will enhance the response of this
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