Page 3166 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
defibrillators, $2.2 million for vehicle replacement, $19.2 million in base funding, $17.2 million to supplement commonwealth fire payment funding, $4 million for ACT Fire & Rescue platform-on-demand staffing, $315,000 in capital upgrade program funding, $772,000 for maintenance of the high-availability phone system upgraded communication centre dual site, backing up and investing in that critical 000 call-taking capability, $424,000 for ESA Fairbairn incident management works upgrades, and $455,000 to maintain the extended care paramedic program.
This is not a government that neglects our emergency services. This is a government that invests, and invests significantly, in supporting the front-line capability of our emergency services, and I will not have that record ignored by those on the other side of this place, because they know it. They know it.
When Mr Smyth was the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, what did we have? The dysfunctional Emergency Services Bureau, the completely dysfunctional, under-resourced, under-capability Emergency Services Bureau. That is what we had, that legacy that led into 2003 and everything that flowed from that terrible incident.
Let me address the points of criticism in Mr Smyth’s motion. First of all, we know that the ACT Ambulance Service as an organisation is delivering high-quality services. We know that it has grown significantly in a short period in terms of its size and service demand, and it is now having to cope with a change from growing from what has been characterised as a small cottage organisation to a large, complex ambulance service.
But let us have a look at what Mr Grant Lennox said when he reviewed outcomes of the implementation of his last report. He said:
Ambulance demand has continued to increase, most recently demonstrated by 34,000 responses in 2007-08 to 43,000 responses in 2012-13. Over the same period ambulance crews now travel a further 500,000 kms per annum responding to cases and the busy communications centre now handles over 144,000 inward and outward calls per annum.
Mr Lennox went on to point out:
Response performance shows that Canberra—
that is right, Canberra—
has the best Code 1 response times at the 90th percentile … of all capital cities …
Further:
… this reflects extremely positively on ACTAS and should be a source of great confidence to the ACT community for community safety levels.
That is what the independent reviewer of our Ambulance Service had to say about the emergency response capability of the ACT Ambulance Service as a result of this government’s investments.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video