Page 4275 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 27 November 2013
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has about responsibilities for ministers—that somehow ministers are directly engaged in the day-to-day management of every aspect of their agency. He may think that that is the way the world operates but it certainly is not. The government has in place a very capable team of professional operational leaders who drive the day-to-day management, direction and delivery of services of our Emergency Services Agency.
What Mr Smyth fails to do in his motion today is to demonstrate how his so-called solution addresses the issues that he raises. It seems to me that it is a solution looking for a problem. Mr Smyth has the simple refrain in his motion today, “I believe there are all these problems, and the way to fix it is to have a statutory agency.” He does not actually explain how having a statutory agency addresses any of those issues that he lists. He does not explain how having another corporate area, how having another ministerial support area, how having its own HR function, would in any way address the issues that he raises.
I will tell you the only thing it would do, Madam Speaker. It would mean taxpayers would be paying more for administration and back office support than they do today. That would be the only outcome of having a statutory agency. We know what comes with establishing separate agencies, particularly statutory agencies, where they are not allowed to have any other relationship with other parts of government or any other administrative unit. It means you are going to have another ministerial support area. It means you have to have another HR area. It means you have to have a whole range of other support functions that currently are shared across the Justice and Community Safety portfolio from within Justice and Community Safety itself.
That, of course, was the reason why the government took the decision to make the Emergency Services Agency part of the broader Justice and Community Safety portfolio—to reduce overhead costs, so that taxpayers’ dollars were not spent on overheads but were spent on the front line. And it has worked. We have improved budget accountability on the part of the ESA, we do not have duplication of overhead costs, and we have more money and more investment going into the front line where the community expects it to go.
Once again we hear from the shadow treasurer, who lectures this government at length about costs and the need for savings, proposing duplication of functions and more taxpayers’ dollars being spent on overhead costs around HR, personnel management, ministerial support, cabinet liaison and all the things that come with a separate administrative unit and which are currently met from within the broader Justice and Community Safety portfolio.
I am very proud of what this government has achieved for our emergency services. We now have state-of-the-art capabilities across all of our emergency services and they are backed up with significant investment in resources, in training and in facilities. I would like to talk today about what this government has done under the existing administrative arrangements to deliver better emergency services for our community, because that is what people expect at the end of the day.
First of all, we have right now an extensive station relocation program underway. We have delivered excellent new fire and for the first time intensive care paramedic
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