Page 884 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 18 March 2015
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I listened to Mr Smyth’s comments today. I have thought long and hard about this because this issue has been looming for a day or so. There have been conversations floating around about it and Mr Smyth tabled his motion yesterday. At the end of the day, Mr Smyth is saying the report must be released. The thing I cannot resolve is what benefit will result from that. It is quite clear, as I have touched on already, that there is a clear public understanding that there are problems in the Ambulance Service. There is a clear understanding in this place, there is obviously a clear understanding amongst staff, because people have voiced it very clearly, and there is a clear understanding in the media. So everybody knows it. As I said earlier, it was well spelt out on radio this morning and well spelt out in the Canberra Times today. I think it is fair to say that the minister has been quite up-front, as has the commissioner, in saying that there are real problems in the ACT Ambulance Service.
But we have also been given advice that to release the report would be compromising and disadvantageous to particular individuals, so I do not know what benefit would result from releasing the actual report that goes to government when all of the issues have been put on the table. The only thing I can see is that Mr Smyth wants to be able to come into the chamber and quote sections of it and really drive this issue home for a political benefit. For me, it is all about the outcomes. We have got this blueprint. Everybody knows there is a problem. It has been plenty discussed. Being able to come into this place and pull out quotes that will clearly be colourful because participants in the survey have evidently been very honest, based on some of the leaked bits of the report that we have heard, I do not think will produce any positives. On that basis I will be supporting Minister Burch’s motion. I believe it is a better approach.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Minister for Planning, Minister for Roads and Parking, Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations, Minister for Children and Young People and Minister for Ageing) (6.22): I move the amendment circulated in my name:
Omit all words after “That this Assembly”, substitute:
“(1) notes that:
(a) the ACT Emergency Services Agency is undergoing a process of reform and this has been underpinned by a number of reviews of the organisation;
(b) the Lennox Review showed that ACTAS is one of the best ambulance services in Australia;
(d) the ACT Government commissioned O2C Solutions to conduct a review of organisational behavioural aspects of the ACT Ambulance Service;
(d) the O2C review was progressed involving the Transport Workers’ Union;
(e) the O2C report makes a range of key findings and recommendations;
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