Page 3878 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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The ACT Rural Fire Service are another of the services which have been effective in meeting performance targets. In the 2006-07 financial year, they attended 359,273 bushfires or grassfires. The ACT Rural Fire Service have a target to contain 95 per cent or more bushfires and grassfires to less than five hectares; in 2006-07, they exceeded this target, with 97.8 per cent of bushfires and grassfires being less than five hectares. It should be noted that 91.2 per cent were less than one hectare. This is an outstanding achievement by our volunteer and departmental firefighters and another example of how effective our emergency services are.
The ACT State Emergency Service have also seen an increase in demand. The 2006-07 financial year saw a 19 per cent increase in operations, with 91 per cent of incidents related directly to storm and flood operations. They not only provided substantial clean-ups after a number of severe thunderstorms that impacted on the ACT, but also provided two weeks of on-going deployments to the New South Wales Hunter region in June 2007, where they performed several hundred tasks relating to flood and storm response and recovery.
This Assembly should applaud our emergency service workers for their performance over recent years. In addition to responding to over 41,000 incidents per year, the Emergency Services Agency is providing those in the community with valuable emergency information and education on how to better prepare themselves and their properties for emergency situations.
The ACT government is providing support to our emergency services and in the last budget has provided funding of $213,000 over four years for 11 new thermal imaging cameras for the ACT Fire Brigade; $50,000 to purchase fully encapsulated chemical protected clothing for the Fire Brigade; $572,000 to purchase new hydraulic rescue equipment; $226,000 for 10 additional community fire units; a further $193,000 over four years for ongoing volunteer training and maintenance; $895,000 for training the ACT Rural Fire Service; and funding for the recruitment of 16 additional ambulance staff.
In addition, as part of the ESA fleet replacement program, 2007-08 will see the purchase of eight firefighting tankers, one urban pumper, three firefighting support vehicles, four intensive-care ambulances, one non-urgent patient transport vehicle and one bariatric ambulance to transport morbidly obese patients. There will also be a storm response vehicle. That is a total of 19 operational vehicles.
This funding by the ACT government is helping to ensure that our emergency services have state-of-the-art equipment and vehicles to ensure that they can effectively and efficiently carry out their jobs in a safe manner. I have no doubt of the effectiveness of our emergency services. They are doing a wonderful job in often arduous circumstances. They should be recognised in this Assembly for their achievements. (Time expired.)
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.23): Yes, we do have effective emergency service workers, Mr Speaker. You know them—the firies, the ambos and the volunteers of the bushfire brigade and the State Emergency Service. Their effectiveness is unquestioned
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