Page 1614 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
impasse with its emergency services officers over the restructure, a move which has caused deep, sustained anger and mistrust. Emergency services continue to be paralysed as a consequence.
The failure of this government to reverse the transfer of the ESA to JACS is a complete travesty. The failure of this government to address the bureaucratic bungling of the restructure is a travesty. The failure of this government to address the fundamental issues that have clearly affected the functionality of emergency services is an abomination.
The government has deigned to offer some token gestures in the form of long-awaited and badly overdue funds. I turn to the 10 CFUs, community fire units. It is welcome money, but still well short of what was needed to cover our vulnerable suburbs. Perhaps now we will have 38 CFUs, but by our reckoning we are still 15 short of the requirement. Version 2 of the SBMP is three years late, but again is trucked out so that it looks as though the government is on the ball. It is all spin. How much money do we need for a strategic bushfire management plan? It is not money; it is organisational culture and the will to get these things in place.
Let me turn to the 32 vehicles. We know that the reliability of the RFS fleet has been in question for some time. Given the severe neglect in keeping up with vehicle replacements over some years—which saw 30 per cent of the front-line fleet off-line on the third day of the 2006-07 bushfire season—we will closely scrutinise this budget announcement. Hopefully those 32 vehicles announced in the budget will finally catch up four to five years of neglect.
I turn to bushfire preparedness, including funds to assist in the implementation of the Doogan inquiry recommendations. These are funds to implement the sorts of recommendations that were identified by McLeod in 2003. It is three years too late. We are playing catch-up. This is a catch-up budget, as characterised by the above. What do we have? We have an emergency services which is not good enough organisationally. That has been the case and it remains the case now—backdated to pre-January 2003. It is not good enough.
I turn to the ambulance service. This budget sees an addition of 16 staffing positions and four new ambulances. That is welcome news, but again these were deficiencies which were identified two and three years ago—another case of playing catch-up. We know that front-line ambulance personnel have been dangerously overstretched for some time. Their frustration has been evident in recent media reports. The TWU—colleagues of yours, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker—has claimed that ambulance officers have been—I am sure you agree with every word here, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker—working excessive overtime and that response times have suffered as a result. Ten hours overtime per week—if true, as claimed by the TWU to be average—is unacceptable. It is hoped that the new initiative will eradicate that need. It is hoped, too, that the 16 new officers will rebuild badly needed capacity to ensure that there are seven ambulance crews around the clock—not single response units, but two-man crewed vehicles round the clock. We wait with bated breath.
I turn to transport—bus replacement. I have gone back and examined all the budget papers from 2002-03 onwards. There arises a very serious question about the overall
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .