Page 887 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 18 March 2015
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Perhaps he should have gone back to his own policy. I love the Greens website. It should be entitled “The things we believe in when it suits us”. The website says that one of the goals of the Greens in government is that they want open and transparent access to government documents. Here is your chance, Mr Rattenbury. Stand up for your principles. You like standing up in this place—through you, Madam Speaker—and telling us of the goals of the Greens. What the Greens want, Mr Rattenbury has an opportunity to get today—open and transparent access to government documents. Yes, it might be unpalatable reading for some, but I understand that the team at O2C did the cultural review for the Defence Force and that has helped change the Defence Force. I am not sure the defence minister issued a doctored report in that case, and that is what we have here. We have a doctored report.
Ms Burch: It is not a doctored report.
MR SMYTH: You have clearly changed the text—
MADAM SPEAKER: Standing order 42, Mr Smyth.
MR SMYTH: Through you, Madam Speaker. Clearly the text has been changed. Remember what was said—the core of the findings remains the same. So we have a core, but we do not have the text that backs up the core. I cannot believe that a professional, as the person who heads up O2C is, would write a summary that was not addressed by the text.
We do not know what is in the report. We do not know what the government is addressing. We do not know the size of the problem. We do not know the scope of the problem. We do not know the penetration of the problem through the ACT Ambulance Service. We do not know who is responsible for the problem. Did it just happen? That is the implication of some of what is said here. “Oh, it just happens. It happens in all those ambulance services; therefore it’s okay.” Well, it is not okay to use as an alibi that this is common in ambulance services. It might be, but it is not in our ambulance service.
Yes, the officers do a great job; I have said that many times and I will say it again. They actually do a great job despite the government, despite the management, despite the minister. They do the job because they are professionals. Let us go through the litany. Who has forgotten the defibrillator fiasco? Who has forgotten the 10-year procurement process for the uniforms? Who has forgotten the disciplinary matters, some of which have gone on for more than a year, with senior officers sidelined on full pay? Just leave them in the departure lounge and they will all go away. That is this government’s way of treating staff, and we are getting another dose of it today.
Mr Rattenbury said, yes, there is a problem in ACTAS. But we knew that before the report was instigated. We knew that before the inquiry was started. What we are none the wiser about is the size and scope and nature of that problem and what the government is actually addressing. It is not clear. I defy any member to stand up and cite from this report what the problem actually is. When you go to the section on bullying and blaming the bully and the widespread features of ambulance services around the world, according to the literature the word “bullying” does not appear. It
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