Page 3122 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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do not want anyone let go that should not be let go. They have not even got those basics right. We saw the prisoner on WIN news laughing about the fact that he had been able to walk out when he was not meant to. I do not know his history—presumably he did not commit any serious crimes while he was free, but that may not have been the case. It may have been a violent prisoner who was let free and then assaulted someone or murdered someone.
These are very important issues which have not been addressed. I say again: perhaps the minister can get up, when he gets his opportunity, and tell us what he is doing to fix some of these issues. (Second speaking period taken.) The minister will have unlimited time—God help us—to talk about it. I certainly expect that he would give us in some detail information on what he has done to fix all of those things. Mr Hanson has read some of the litany.
The minister may also talk to us about ambulance response times and how he is going to improve some of the very poor ambulance response times that the Auditor-General’s Office has highlighted in a report which the minister has been so critical of. Why is it that so many of these outer suburbs—they are not all outer suburbs, but many of them are—are getting ambulance services that are so far below the standard that has been set?
We can look at numerous suburbs and go through those that had responses within eight minutes. These are percentages, so they give you an idea across the board: Hawker, 34 per cent; Red Hill, 32 per cent; Calwell, 42 per cent; Kambah, 40 per cent; Kaleen, 31 per cent—then it gets worse as we go on—Higgins, 27 per cent; Giralang, 31 per cent; Flynn, 23 per cent; Barton, 26 per cent; Monash, 30 per cent; Fadden, 20 per cent; Wanniassa 23 per cent; Campbell 27 per cent; Phillip, 43 per cent; Isabella Plains, 26 per cent; Duffy 10 per cent; Pialligo, 11 per cent; Symonston, 24 per cent; O’Connor, 46 per cent; Ngunnawal, 26 per cent; Oxley, five per cent; Holt, 21 per cent; Nicholls, 18 per cent; Weston Creek, 18 per cent; and Macarthur, zero per cent.
The minister cannot explain these figures away. Perhaps he could get up and table for us any updated figures. Have they significantly improved from what has been published? We would love to see if they have. We would love to hear that they have improved and how they have improved. If they have not, we want to hear how the minister is going to make sure that they do.
This is life and death stuff. These standards exist for a reason. They exist because, in many cases, someone not being seen by an ambulance quickly can be the difference between life and death; it can be the difference between serious ongoing injuries or otherwise. These figures do not reflect well in any way on this minister and his handling of this portfolio.
I did want to look at some of the non-answers to questions from the minister in this portfolio. We asked fairly simple questions around the budget initiatives involving JACS, for example, for each expense revenue or capital measure recorded in budget paper 3 which applies to the department—what is the staffing increase required and what are the IT requirements, and has the department offset any funding to accommodate any pay initiative and, if so, what was the offset? The minister’s answer gives us nothing.
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