Page 135 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2010
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up to us to examine the report and draw reasonable conclusions from the data. I did not hear a single reasonable conclusion from the convenor of the Greens. All I heard was a whole lot of get-out-of-jail excuses because they simply fail to hold the government accountable, yet again.
If we go to the motion and look at paragraph (vi)—the increasingly underfunded emergency services which have resulted in steadily increasing ambulance response times—that is a statement of fact. If you want the facts, let us go to the report. If you go to the chart on page 9.13, emergency management services for fire events, and if you look at the real funding of fire service organisations in table 9.2, you see that, in 2008-09 dollars, the ACT is the only jurisdiction that does not have real funding of fire service organisations. We have gone backwards.
I hope the analysis of that is to the liking of the convenor of the Greens, but if you look at the chart on page 9.13, you will see that funding in New South Wales from 2004-05 to 2008-09 went up 19 per cent; in Victoria, 112 per cent; in Queensland, 12 per cent; in Western Australia, 67 per cent; in South Australia, nine per cent; in Tasmania, two per cent; in the Northern Territory, nine per cent. There is only one jurisdiction that goes backwards.
Now, I hope that is scholarly enough, because in 2008-09 dollars, in 2004-05 the ACT spent $52.2 million. In 2008-09 it only spent $50.6 million. That is backwards. So what is wrong with holding the government to account on paragraph (vi) of this motion where we see the emergency services real funding of fire service organisations going backwards in the ACT? It is the only jurisdiction to go backwards, Ms Hunter. I hope my analysis meets with your agreement. If not, I can actually send my staff around to brief you on how a smaller number means that something has gone backwards, because that is the basis of this. We always get the scold from the Greens; we always get scolded for daring to hold the government to account. We are scolded by the third party insurance party, but they really are the “we’ll just let the government get away with anything” party. They are just a party that does not stand up for the people of the ACT. Perhaps the minister would like to come down and explain why the real funding of fire service organisations in the ACT has gone backwards under this government.
That is not the only measure where they have gone backwards. Let us go to table 9.1 on page 9.8. It is the analysis of volunteers in emergency service organisations, and the numbers have declined. In 2006-07 there were, according to this chart, 1,452. It went up in 2007-08 to 1,572 but then it declined; it went backwards. In 2008-09 it went down to 1,437, a decline that concerns me. I hope the minister will come down and provide some scholarly analysis of why this decline has occurred. Perhaps Ms Hunter will then seek leave to speak again to either validate what the minister has said or just accept his excuse.
But that is the problem for us: when you sell out, you sell out, and that is the problem for the people of the ACT. They will come to know that the Greens are a sell-out. When you have motions to hold the government to account, there is a real opportunity to be third party insurance, but they just choose not to accept that.
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