Page 516 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 14 March 2007
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Mr Corbell: No, it is not, actually. The Nuremberg defence is following orders; it is quite different, Mr Pratt.
MR PRATT: Well—
Mr Corbell: What an absurd parallel.
MR PRATT: So you were following orders blindly, minister?
Mr Corbell: No.
MR PRATT: Right. This is the defence that the minister and his government used in respect of their failures in January 2003. This is the defence that they used to explain away the reasons why they did not warn the ACT community and why the systems failed—because they left it to the experts. They did not inquire. The government did not inquire; the minister of the day did not have close enough ministerial oversight to ensure that they were getting quality advice from their advisers. We know what happened. We know that the community was not warned in time.
Members interjecting—
MR PRATT: I absolutely agree with the point raised by Dr Foskey that we need to see in the annual reports produced a much more transparent coverage of the state of the emergency services. Dr Foskey and I have often raised this in estimates. She has raised a very good point. Minister, you need to ensure that your annual reports are much more transparent and highlight the weaknesses and the strengths of our emergency services.
Members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! There are too many conversations going on.
Members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! There are too many conversations going on in the room. Mr Corbell!
MR PRATT: I was about to put my deputy speaker’s hat on. I had better not; that would be out of place, of course.
The annual reports need to highlight the weaknesses and strengths of the emergency services so that this place can scrutinise the progress of these sorts of reforms and the way things are going. As far as I am concerned, too many of our annual reports—not all of them, but too many of them—are simply glossy magazines written to promote issues which we think need much closer scrutiny.
Dr Foskey also raises a very good point about whether we have really got to the bottom of the question as to why the ESA failed. That point has never been clarified. Why did the government restructure the ESA? The government says that it had to
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