Page 1677 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
… the overall governance structure under the act—
the 2004 act—
has remained the same.
This is quite obviously not the case. When the Emergencies Act was passed in 2004, it established a statutory authority to manage the emergency services in the ACT. In 2006, as part of the response to the still-secret Costello report, this authority was abolished and was replaced by the Emergency Services Agency, located within the Department of Justice and Community Safety and with four specialist agency chief officers replaced by two deputy commissioners. Then, in mid-2009, the senior structure was changed again to revert to a commissioner with four specialist agency chief officers. It is clearly evident that the structure of emergency services management has been anything but stable over the past six years.
The minister then says that, according to a review, or what he calls a refresh, the act is outdated. I find this rather surprising, as the act to which he refers was put in place only in 2004. This is a very short period in which to conclude that the act is already outdated.
As if these criticisms are not enough, we read in the explanatory memorandum that the proposed amendments in this bill “build on a sound foundation of settled arrangements” in the act. On tone hand, we have an act that is outdated and an organisation that has undergone substantial change over the past six years; on the other hand, we apparently have a settled organisation. Minister, you cannot have it both ways. In developing public policy, an essential ingredient should be an agreed analysis of the issues that are the focus of the public policy. The contradiction between your presentation speech and the explanatory statement does not provide any confidence that there is agreement within your government about even the state of affairs in emergency management, let alone determining what the appropriate response should be.
The minister then refers to such matters as inadequacies, inconsistencies, duplication and ambiguity in the emergency management governance arrangements. These words make things sound as though they are a real mess. But are they? The changes proposed by the minister in response to this mess are relatively minor. They establish a hierarchy of emergencies; they change the process for appointing an emergency controller, and they change the Emergency Management Committee to the Security and Emergency Management Senior Officials Group.
I have no problem with the first and second of these changes. As I noted earlier, there can be a spectrum of emergencies to which a response is required. It is quite appropriate, therefore, for an appropriate person to be appointed to manage that emergency event. And if the event becomes more substantial and a state of emergency is declared, a controller needs to be appointed to manage that event. Indeed, it may be the same person. I also support changing the title of this person from territory controller to emergency controller. I think that adds a certain clarity.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video