Page 4034 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 30 October 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
year there are people, for instance, who fought the 2003 fires coming forward regarding incidents where people have not been counselled properly, have not had the opportunity to get the counselling or tell their story or they have not been ready for various reasons. With the Ambulance Service, the RFS and the Fire and Rescue service, I have had people say to me that the post-incident debriefs are inadequate and therefore it should be improved.
Some have raised the question of welfare officers; some have raised the question of whether we need a chaplain, as, for instance, the AFP has. So there are real questions there about the care of the staff of the ESA, as to whether or not they are getting the support that they deserve. Again, it is an issue I have asked about many times over the last couple of years. I get the fob but people keep coming to me and saying that there are people who are suffering inside all of the services.
The last point under Fire and Rescue is a replacement for out-of-date PODs. PODs were given—they are containers with equipment in them—to the ACT by, I believe, the Howard government. They were unused for many years simply because we did not have the crews for them. The government has established a platoon to look after them. Indeed, I understand that the government has bought new PODs but people have raised with me that the equipment in some of these PODs is now out of date. If you are going to a chemical, biological or nuclear incident or potential incident, a white powder scare perhaps, you would want to be certain that all of that gear is up to date. Perhaps the minister could detail the program to replace the equipment and guarantee to the Assembly that all the PODs are fully useable, that they can be fully crewed and that they are fully up to date.
Part (2)(b) relates to the ACT Ambulance Service. We know from this morning’s paper that there are problems within the culture of that service. We are going to have a review. The minister had some amazing lines on the radio. I do not know who is working up the spin but they need to get better. At quarter to eight on 2CC it was kind of like “growing pains”—the service had got a bit bigger and the culture was because of growing pains.
Bullying is not because of growing pains. Standover tactics and vindictiveness are not growing pains; it is lack of appropriate management. This was made public 12 months ago and the minister has done nothing. After 12 months we do not even know who is going to conduct the review. I do not believe the terms of reference of the review are publicly available. This is a minister who is failing his staff by not ensuring that happened earlier. This minister is a failure.
The problem here is that in one of the incidents apparently two reasonably senior officers were suspended for a racial slur. I understand those officers may well still be on suspension, some 60 or 70 weeks after the incident. So the person who made the complaint has not got closure. One of the officers, I understand, has moved on. The other is now not working within the ACT Ambulance Service. He is doing other roles in a government organisation.
How can you not resolve an issue 60 or 70 weeks later? That is not growing pains, minister; that is incompetence. It is just sheer incompetence. We had this remarkable
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video