Page 2603 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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How can you write that down, put that in a document and table it in the Assembly and expect it to be taken seriously? Remember what the union said:
“It is also disgraceful that workers affected by this were not protected, that due process was not observed, and that it took over a year of bungling for the bureaucracy to resolve this shabby episode,” …
The government answer was:
The JACS Directorate including the ACT Emergency Services takes bullying and harassment seriously …
No it does not, if this has been allowed to go the way that it does. And the response from the government goes on:
…and manages issues in line with the ACT Public Service Respect, Equity and Diversity Framework and the Public Sector Management Act.
The ACT government’s respect, equity and diversity framework can be found on a website. The Public Sector Management Act can be found on another website. The response continues:
These matters are regularly reported on to the Assembly through Annual Reports Hearings.
They are not reported regularly; it is annual. What the Assembly wanted to know was how it had happened. Indeed, I think implicit in that is, “What have you done to fix it?” But no, the minister, who I assume crafted the response, does not think that is a reasonable outcome. If you have that attitude, it is not going to fix the problem. You can throw as much money as you want at it but it is not going to improve the outcomes for anyone and the cloud will hang over the male officers in the service. They do a great job. I would think the bulk of them behave as gentlemen and act respectfully towards their female colleagues. But a lot of them are very cranky that they have been left hung out to dry by this minister who will not stand up and do the right thing.
The next recommendation from the committee is:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government’s Emergency Services Agency should comply with the Emergencies Act 2004 requirements for the upcoming version 3 Strategic Bushfire Management Plan by including in this Plan an explicit statement of all resources needed to meet the objective of the Plan.
The response is:
Agreed.
An explicit statement of all resources needed to meet the objective of the Strategic Bushfire Management Plan … is already planned to be included in version 3 of the Plan. The SBMP version 3 is expected to be released by October 2014.
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