Page 2217 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
It is all intimidation. There are veiled threats. That is why Mrs Burke was quite right to stand her ground—and she did a good job—and say to this Chief Minister and his government, “You can go and take a running jump.” We will provide you, in all fairness and transparency, with the information that we think that you need to get on with doing the job yourselves, but we do not have the faith or the confidence to provide the names of people, of constituents.
The transparency issue goes on and on. For a very long time the NRMA peak body have been trying to get in to see Mr Hargreaves to discuss a whole range of issues around road safety. They cannot get in there. Of course, as I said earlier, the minister for municipal services sacked the traffic liaison committee anyway. Where is the consultation process? Where is the two-way flow between ministers and peak bodies—to get the best advice possible?
Let me go to the issue of the Al Grassby statue. Okay, $76,000 is a small amount of money in the greater scheme of things and you would not want to always belittle that sort of money. But it is still a lot of money for a statue. That is why the opposition raised the question: where did this money come from and can you really afford it when you have other screaming priorities in the municipal services areas? We asked, “Who approved the statue project? Where was the design process? What committee was involved in the analysis process?” There was a thundering silence. We failed to get any answers at all from Minister Hargreaves on those sorts of questions.
The same thing applied to Griffith library. We asked the minister, “What was the background? What were the justifications? Where is the data on library performance that backs up your decision to close this particular library?” We asked the minister to provide the answers. There was a thundering silence—none of our business. First, there is no consultation with the community in the first place; second, when the opposition seeks answers on why a decision was taken, we do not get those answers.
Mr Hargreaves is not alone in this failure to be open and accountable. I now turn to Mr Corbell and the emergency services authority restructure. In mid-2006, Mr Corbell—no doubt driven by a screaming pack of bureaucrats, particularly those in Treasury who were entirely jealous of the independent authority that the ESA was—went ahead to sack that independent authority, turn it into a mere agency and shove it back under the umbrella of JACS.
That decision infuriated the volunteers—not only the volunteers but also the permanent officers in the emergency services authority. Where was the consultation? It did not exist. Then we saw a Mexican stand-off for months and months. Peter Dunn walked out in disgust. When he was replaced, the new commissioner, other authorities and the minister himself failed to sit down and consult with the members to listen to their concerns about this destruction of the independence of the emergency services authority.
There is a very good reason why the ESA was independent. It was independent because McLeod said we needed an operationally responsive authority to get to the nub of bushfire threats—and not only bushfire threats but all emergency threats. That
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .