Page 3879 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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because of their dedication. It is the effectiveness of the government in hindering that dedication and that zeal that is in question today.
We have a minister who is in denial. He reads his brief, so everything must be fine! We have a minister who is afraid to stand up to the commissioner and say, “Stop the retribution; implement the promises that we negotiated back in March; and get on with the job of delivering a better working environment for the volunteers and a safer ACT for the people of the ACT.” You only have to look at the answer: “We throw more cash at it. We have got better governance.” I am afraid that we do not.
It is quite simple. In seven months, the commissioner could not come up with the terms of reference to evaluate the effectiveness of Simon Corbell’s reforms. Seven months to come up with a set of terms of reference! By mid-November there had not been a single meeting between the volunteers and the commissioner—because the minister does not care. He did not check; he did not ask; he did not direct. He is afraid to stand up to the commissioner because he has no interest in this part of his portfolio.
Let us run it off. There is the TRN, which does not cover everything that it should. There is FireLink, which was implemented. At last, he said that ministers should take responsibility—but not him. There is the FireLink that does not work. We have got the failure to set up the Fairbairn base; we have got the RFS controllers being dragged back to Curtin on days of total fire ban. We have got incidents where, at the start of the fire season, we cannot even effectively man the fire towers. Those things do not indicate to me that they have the hallmarks of good governance.
Mr Corbell has a litany of not delivering on capital works programs—the step-down facility, Gungahlin Drive, FireLink, the prison, the supertanker. The supertanker was promised more than two years ago. And there is the extra command vehicle, which I know Guises Creek brigade has not received yet—the new command vehicle. A supertanker that is missing in action has not arrived. There is money there for it; it is a capacity that the government decided the brigades needed. But where is it? It has not been delivered.
Then we get to the issue of the new tankers. The minister says, “Yes, we have got funding in the budget for new tankers.” Yes, there is, and the government is refusing to listen to the advice of the volunteers, who would like to see the tankers from Victoria purchased instead of the tankers that the government—the commissioner—favours, which are the tankers designed by the South Australian Country Fire Service.
The problem is that the CFA tankers from Victoria cost $40,000 extra each—$40,000. That $40,000 is primarily in crew safety. Yes, that is right, Mr Speaker: we are arguing over $40,000 per vehicle of crew safety. That is okay: they are volunteers; just send them out. “We will use the tankers that have less water.” The volunteers want 3,700 litres of water on their tankers. The government is saying that a 3,000 litre tank is okay. The volunteers are saying that they want things like doors that open rather than roller doors. As you would know, Mr Speaker, roller doors tend to jam, and in an emergency a jammed door can make all the difference.
We understand that the finish on the South Australian tankers is less good and that they are simply less safe. The report from the committee of the volunteers said,
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