Page 596 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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personality issues? Did the services all come together and work as one? What went wrong? Why was McLeod’s recommendation, which was so enthusiastically taken up, dropped? How can we know that this restructure was a good idea when we do not know what was wrong with the ESB in the first place and the ESA?
I was told this morning that we are back where we were in 2003 when it was the Emergency Services Bureau, and there is nothing out there on the public record to tell me that is not the case. So that is a really important question that needs to be answered before I am going to feel that I really know what is going on here. We need a thoroughgoing review and an analysis to build from because these problems have been going on too long. They will always give the opposition ammunition. They will always have grounds, they believe, for a no-confidence motion and they will throw us off the rails time and time again until we get some proper answers.
Mr Corbell says he is not the expert, and I agree. None of us here is the expert. In fact no one person is. The expertise on fire control is broadly spread across our community, particularly amongst our firefighting services. I have not met the commissioner and I must meet him if I am going to speak about him; nonetheless, some comments can possibly be made just from what is on the public record. He is apparently a relative newcomer to the territory and to the services, but he is Mr Corbell’s expert. That is not really good enough, because the expertise is spread very broadly and there is a lot of expertise there because people have been here a long time and involved. If those officers really have thrown their keys into the hat in a serious way, we have got a real problem and it has got to be solved.
It is not a good idea in terms of organisational dynamics to give someone who is new to an organisation, even if they are in charge of it, carte blanche to change the restructure, to put out what I believe looks like a pretty good business plan but may have only been written by one person. That is not the way you get acceptance for something that is as important and deep ranging as this. So there are problems. The knowledge, the frustration, of experienced firefighters, many of whom do their work for nothing, has to be seen in this context. What we are seeing here is a familiar sight: a failure of consultation with the people on the ground who are most concerned.
The minister might have done the consultation and come out with exactly the same result; I do not know. We do not know because it was not done. But not involving people is the part of the problem that the minister is facing today—and it cannot be a good feeling to stand out there, with your volunteer RFB clothes on and with the blokes and say, “I am one of you guys,” when you are in fact the minister for those guys. I know this must be so hard for Mr Corbell, because he does feel, I am sure, like one of those guys. And he is one of those guys; but he is also the minister and the person that those guys are blaming. It is not a good position. I do not know what to do about it, but I am not going to suggest he resign from either of those positions. Okay? I am not agreeing with you guys on this side today.
We have been told that the minister trusts the commissioner and therefore we must trust the minister. But it is pretty clear the people do not trust the minister, and this recent reorganisation has not helped. If we are going to be stuck—(Time expired.)
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