Page 2635 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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All of the aspects of Mrs Jones’s motion relating to the importance of the 000 call centre, the importance of bushfire preparedness and capability planning and the importance of staff morale—I support all of these sentiments and I am happy to again put this on the record.
I understand that Mr Corbell is making a minor amendment, which is to add the word “continues” to the motion. The effect of this amendment is to say that the government is already doing the things in part (2) of the motion, creating a culture of confidence and supporting ESA employees, and it needs to continue to do this. I do not think it makes a great deal of difference either way. Mrs Jones’s motion essentially says that the ESA is really important and we need to look after them. Mr Corbell’s motion essentially says that the ESA is very important and we need to continue to look after them. Either way, I agree with both sentiments. I am happy to support the amendment because I think it is a subtle difference that, frankly, does not matter too much. If the government wants to put the word ‘continues” in there, I support it, because I do not think they have been doing a bad job in emergency services; I think there are a lot of positive things happening.
The source of some of the contention seems to be that the government has been conducting a strategic review of the ESA involving independent advice. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is an important thing to do to ensure that the service is serving the community properly and is cost-effective.
The agency has been implementing a series of reforms based on these recommendations since last year. This is always, of course, a challenging time in an agency, as it is a time of change. After some follow-up with the government, I understand that the reform process has progressed through considerable consultation with staff and that work is underway to progress reforms, including in relation to the comm cen and revised priorities for the station upgrade and relocation program.
I note also that ESA’s strategic plan for the next five years includes revised and new strategic priorities, including things such as increasing the number of women in our emergency services, delivering new stations and facility upgrades, and improved organisational structures, internal communications and governance in ESA. These are all good issues to focus on, I believe. I acknowledge that there will be differences along the way about how that might work out and I know, based on the conversations I have had and the debates that have taken place in this place, that there are different views on how that should roll out. They are strongly held views. That said, I think it does not change the content of his motion.
Members will also have noted that the 2015-16 budget announced an additional $3.9 million in recurrent base funding for the ESA each year to help meet the challenges faced in emergency services. I understand that one of the issues of concern is the ESA comm cen transitioning to emergency 000 call takers. This will extend from ambulance across to fire and other emergency-related incidents. The intent of this is to allow more firefighters to be available to respond to incidents and undertake other prevention initiatives. This move parallels reforms in 2009 which transitioned the ACT Ambulance Service to its call-taker dispatch system and which have allowed paramedics to return to treating patients.
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