Page 881 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 2 May 2007
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What have this government worn? They have worn a broad, almost rebellious approach by our volunteers. They have worn the ire of some very good professional officers, some of whom either have been forced to resign or have voluntarily resigned in disgust—not only in disgust because this government will take the emergency services back to the pre-2003 model which failed the ACT community in the January 2003 fires but because this government would not take the experts into their trust. They would not take good men and women into their trust to talk about the changes. And why would they not do that? Because they knew the proposal was not going to fly and so, to avoid what would have been quite genuine and well-placed criticism by volunteer leaders, professional leaders, they just dumped it upon them. So what have we got now? As we sit here today, we have got an emergency services organisation that has tied itself up in knots, with 40 or more captains and vice-captains on strike and a very, very low morale problem.
With regard to emergency services communication projects, this government appropriated $23.5 million in 2003-04 to put in place a new range of communications programs. That was a hell of a lot of money spent. There was a lot of criticism at the time that it was not necessary to spend that amount of money to simply streamline communication programs. Whether or not it was necessary to spend that amount of money to replace the failed communication programs at that time, or a lesser amount of money to perhaps patch those programs up, is a moot point. Clearly, there was some sense in introducing a trunk radio network to make us that much more compatible with New South Wales.
But the point is that you spend so much money and you justify the large expenditure and also justify cutting corners on tendering procedures—for example, the single-source tender for FireLink—because you need to mobilise that program and have it on the ground by bushfire season 2004-05. You say, “That is why we have not gone out to broad tender. By the way, the commodity called FireLink is an unproven commodity. But, gee, that doesn’t matter; we are only going to single-source tender.” Transparent, open and honest government!
Then, when the community and the opposition believe that it is very, very important to scrutinise why all of that occurred, you collapse in a scrum. In estimates committee after estimates committee and in annual report hearings after annual report hearings we have never had the truth borne out, and as we sit here today at a quarter to six on 3 May, FireLink still does not work. So much for transparency, honesty, accountability and accounting for your capabilities!
This government are a dud government when it comes to transparency and telling us why things have failed. They do not want to tell us. For God’s sake, Chief Minister, if you were to say, “Yes, okay, we have just spent $5½ million on what was supposed to be a $3.2 million project and it has failed and we are going to go back to the drawing board,” we would probably say: “Well, silly old you, but at least you have recognised that fact; you are going back to the board; you are justifying the remedial action you are going to take.” You would have a lot more support and a lot more understanding from this opposition and from the community. But you do not do that. There is an arrogant, stubborn approach to keeping everything under wraps: “Don’t admit failure when you’ve failed or when your bureaucrats have failed.” That is why this
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