Page 2218 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
is why it was created. That is why it was created as an operationally independent authority. That did not, though, mean that the government was unable to maintain ministerial oversight of the authority’s administration and financial management. It did not mean that. There was no reason to reduce that authority from being an independent entity to being a mere agency.
Then we saw the stubbornness of Mr Corbell and his authority in dealing with the volunteers and the other permanent officers—culminating in a strike by the captains in the rural fire service, a debilitating strike that took away 40 captains, vice-captains and other senior officers during a very important process.
Then we see FireLink and the whole FireLink debacle. In October and November 2006, we see Minister Corbell—along with his blessed colleague Mr Hargreaves—proclaiming and assuring us that FireLink was fully operational and successful. Now, of course, we know that it is not. I will just grapple here for the A-G’s report: here is the evidence that it was never successful, that it was never operational and that we were led up the garden path by three successive ministers—and more recently by Minister Corbell. Some $4.5 million later and nothing to show for it.
I will finish with Minister Barr. I will refer to Mr Mulcahy’s comments here this morning when he spoke on behalf of Mrs Dunne. He described the debate between Mr Barr and Mrs Dunne here last week about an issue of violence in a particular school and how Mr Barr distracted from the debate, diverted from the debate and obfuscated from the debate. Of course, we have seen that time and time again. Mr Barr is a serial offender.
In recent months we have seen Mr Barr talk about a new program to ameliorate violence in schools. That has been 18 months to two years coming. When I was on the estimates committee last year—and I am now talking about the serial offence behaviour of Mr Barr, another member of your so-called open and accountable government—Mr Barr refused to engage in debate about a very serious violence issue involving a particular high school. We know that there are still very significant problems in that high school because in 2006 nobody took action to really change the system in that high school, to arrest the problems that exist to this day.
When you do not go in and undertake systemic change to address serious issues, things fester; things remain. I would put it to you, Mr Speaker, that in that particular high school that is still the case, and that is because Minister Barr swept that matter beneath the carpet. It may come back to bite Mr Barr but, more importantly, it is going to come back to bite kids, parents, families and the communities that support our high schools.
So there we have it. We have some fine examples of obfuscating, diversionary, intimidating behaviour from a bunch of ministers who belong to a so-called open and accountable government.
I will finish on this note. The quote from Mr Hargreaves at the weekend about his Zen was interesting. He is going to try and turn over a new leaf. We wish him all the best. I do not know whether Mr Hargreaves should be reading Zen; there are many other
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .