Page 4492 - Week 15 - Thursday, 22 November 1990
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At this stage, though, existing pools are not required to be isolation fenced. I would highly recommend it to people who currently have pools, particularly those which are not adequately protected. A child drowning is a terrible tragedy. In the last five years some 600 children under the age of five have drowned in Australia. The majority of those have been in inland cities. Of course, that does not take into account the number of children who have suffered brain damage from immersion in water for periods of little more than 30 seconds. So it is a grave social problem. In the ACT in the last 10 years we have had four children under the age of five drown in pools. I think it is something which, for a small expense, can be remedied. But the Government at this stage has no proposals to introduce legislation in the coming months. As I said, I will be putting something to Government shortly about that measure.
Ambulance Service
DR KINLOCH: My question is to Mr Humphries as Minister for Health. Can the Minister inform the Assembly what progress there has been in resolving the question of industrial bans placed by the Transport Workers Union on the ACT Ambulance Service?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, yes, I can. I thank Dr Kinloch for the question. I am pleased to advise the Assembly that as a consequence of my request representatives from the ACT Board of Health, which included the Ambulance Service and the Transport Workers Union, met yesterday afternoon to discuss the areas of concern in this dispute. As a result of that meeting the parties made positive progress and have identified the accumulation of backlog leave entitlements between 1983 and 1988 as the main problem. It is worth noting, Mr Speaker, that that period of backlog leave predates self-government and is just another example of the problems that this Territory inherited from a Commonwealth Government which was less than judicious and assiduous in protecting the interests of the ACT. In addition, the parties have further agreed to develop a joint party staffing paper identifying a management strategy to resolve the matter. The paper, as soon as it can be completed, will be presented to me for my consideration.
The general spirit of cooperation and active preparedness between all parties to resolve the matter has led to the union agreeing to remove all industrial bans which have been placed on the operation of the Ambulance Service pending the results of the ongoing negotiations. I should indicate, Mr Speaker, that this was not a dispute which really had the support of either side. Earlier this week I met with a number of ambulance officers, who indicated to me that they were concerned about claims made that the
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