Page 4032 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 30 October 2013
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(ii) payment of close call/on call allowances;
(iii) availability of trained IMT officers;
(iv) funds for training;
(v) acquisition of a second bulk water carrier; and
(vi) movements of the fire tankers.
This minister’s administration of the ESA and its agencies is deficient, and it is deficient in a number of ways. There are 20-odd points listed in this motion of a failure of leadership and a failure of administration by the minister. And it is from a minister who has got form. For those with a history in this place, we remember FireLink, with almost $5 million worth of taxpayers’ money thrown down the drain, the Jerra and Rivers sheds, with their flaws which meant you could not open the truck doors when they were inside the shed and, 10 years after the 2003 fires, the 10 years it took to build the Tidbinbilla shed.
The recent Auditor-General’s report into fire readiness said that the minister had not complied with the law. We have had numerous budget blowouts and appeals to Treasurer’s advance to bail the ESA out, and the number of times that we have asked for documents that detail the required capability for the Emergency Services Agency, which, of course, the government until recently had always failed to make available. They are the forerunners to this.
It is no surprise that you can list 20 items because this is a minister who does not deliver. We know that the broad funding issues, budget blowouts and the use of the territory’s advance have been forced on various commissioners because the minister has either been unable to get the funding or unwilling to get the funding to do the job properly.
Let us go to some of the issues. This motion calls on the minister to table, by the first sitting day, detail on how he has addressed the following issues. Let us go to Fire and Rescue. There is a very serious issue in regard to the first responder medical training and pay. If an ambulance is unavailable, we send the fire brigade. They have advanced first aid certificates, but what they do not have is what happens in other states. They have a higher level of training in other states and they get paid an allowance for it.
There are a number of papers floating around in regard to this issue that the UFU has put together and given to the minister and the minister has just, with disdain, said it does not apply to the ACT. It is beyond me how somebody in Victoria or New South Wales as a firefighter can respond to a medical emergency, be given the appropriate training to do so and receive remuneration for that, and yet it does not apply in the ACT. It is an important issue and I know it is an issue that concerns a lot of members of the Fire and Rescue service.
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