Page 3869 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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board the Snowy Hydro SouthCare rescue helicopter who responded to an injured motorcycle rider in Corin Forest last weekend. These are all examples of the professional, dedicated work of our volunteers and full-time paid staff. We are extremely well served by these men and women.
Last week I had the honour of attending a special ceremony for local emergency services personnel and presenting them with national medals for service. Thirty-five men and women were recognised for their service and dedication to the community over 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 years—people like veteran firefighters Lee Summerfield and Andrew Thompson from the ACT Fire Brigade. Both men have spent the last 35 years putting their lives on the line for the people of the ACT.
As we know, at this time of the year, one of the major risks that the Canberra community faces is bushfire. Yesterday, I was very pleased to join with personnel from the Fire Brigade, the Rural Fire Service, TAMS and our community fire units in launching a new bushfire preparedness awareness campaign. This campaign, which is run by the ESA, focuses, through a series of radio, TV and print advertisements, on directing people to the ESA website for information on what they can do and what they need to do to ensure they are well prepared should a bushfire approach or come near their property.
We as an agency are well prepared for the bushfire season. There have been extensive pre-season checks, training, planning and community education activities over the last few months. We have over 1,500 trained personnel ready to tackle the season ahead. We have fire towers. Aircraft are on standby. Indeed, we will have three helicopters based here in the ACT for the coming fire season. That includes the Squirrel and Bell 212 helicopters, as well as a Skycrane under the National Aerial Firefighting Centre arrangements, which will arrive in town mid-December. Of course, our call-taking centre and Comcen are manned 24/7.
We have done the work to improve the resourcing of our Emergency Services Agency. Unlike those who came before us, we have made the investment to improve funding for our emergency services. In the most recent budget, over $15.7 million was allocated for a range of new resources and initiatives aimed at directly supporting front-line emergency services personnel. For example, we provided funding for a $6.5 million fire vehicle replacement program. That will replace 32 firefighting vehicles in the RFS and in the departmental brigades as well as the fire brigade.
We have provided over $200,000 for 10 additional community fire units, bringing to 38 the total number of community fire units located around the urban interface; $1.5 million for improved bushfire readiness, including implementation of any of the agreed outstanding bushfire coronial recommendations; money for the Bushfire Council to independently monitor and report on the implementation of these recommendations; and just under $1 million for the training of remote area firefighting teams, incident control and heavy vehicle driver training. These are all indications of a government that is prepared to invest in order to improve the readiness and preparedness of our emergency services.
Why are these things important? It is important that we train, for example, remote area firefighters so that, in the event of a fire in a mountainous area in the ACT, we
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