Page 2912 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 August 2015
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or injured get treatment quickly to minimise the effect on their health of having had, for instance, a heart attack, an accident in the snow, a car accident or whatever. But no; it is about cohesive operations, a collaborative management team and a unified executive.
That speaks volumes about the minister’s strategic reform agenda. It clearly highlights that we do not have cohesive operations, we do not have a collaborative management team, and we do not have a unified executive. You can say or do whatever you want, but when you read this document you do not get a sense that it is about what is going on and how are we going to improve things for the people of the ACT. It is a four-page document—well, three-and-a-bit pages. One of the pages is just about the announcements of who is going where. About half the page is, “Mark Brown is doing this,” and “Conrad Barr is doing that,” and “Peter Le-Lievre has commenced this,” and on it goes. If you take out the back page, which just has the signature block on it, you take out the second page, which basically just has movement of staff, and you then go to the third page, which has an org chart on it, there is not much of a reform agenda. There is not much of a reform agenda here, and that is the problem with this minister.
We know the minister is not a good leader, because when the union wrote her a letter asking to her show leadership and being critical of some of the things that were being done, she handed over the letter to the individual responsible for the things that were being criticised and let him respond. The last paragraph says:
The United Firefighters Union implores ACT Police & Emergency Services Minister Joy Burch to provide leadership and halt the return to the dangerous structures and practices currently being hotly pursued by the Justice and Community Safety Directorate and the Emergency Services Agency.
“I don’t want any part of that. I’ll just hand it to those who are hotly pursuing the things that the union does not like and let them respond.” Instead of asking the critical questions, “How do we get a better outcome for the people of the ACT and provide a better workplace for the officers in all four services and the volunteers who assist them,” you hand it over to the guy that is being criticised, the management that is being criticised. That shows that the minister is failing in her responsibilities and failing in her duty to provide leadership within this portfolio. (Second speaking period taken.)
This is life and death stuff. When you call for the fire brigade, you call for the ambulance, you hope the RFS is going to turn up or you are relying on the SES to save a loved one, you want to make sure we have a system that works. I have to say that I am not sure we do.
Part of the opening statement from the police and emergency services minister was that she was very pleased to be the first female minister in the ACT for emergency services and police. She said she would have a focus on promoting women across our service. She said she would launch a pathway to an inclusive workforce, the first step being the women in emergency services strategy. According to the minister the pathway is a key document and outlines a series of targeted actions that will take the
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