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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2541 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

to provide adequate protection for our emergency workers. That is why I am concerned about the undermining of workers compensation provisions, particularly for emergency workers but not confined to emergency workers. There are a whole range of people out there who will be concerned about that issue.

Nobody could avoid thinking about the way families might be affected by all of the video and radio news coming from the Thredbo site. Everybody would agree that there have been greater tragedies in terms of loss of human lives, but it is rare that you get so close to, and involved in, a rescue of such magnitude that goes on for so long. I think that in itself would assist the community in better understanding the role of rescue workers and voluntary emergency services staff. Those people provide various skills at those sorts of incidents, performing tasks varying from what might be described as the most menial up to providing fairly sophisticated rescue assistance. One has to spare some thoughts for the people who supplied the food and all of the other logistical back-up required for that operation. Though they were not at the front, it would not have worked without them at the back.

For all of those families who were affected by the tragedy, who lost loved ones and relatives, one cannot help but have ongoing concerns about how they might cope with this matter. In any event, it is our responsibility to make sure that the ACT emergency services - those with whom I have worked and those with whom I have not - are continually offered the sort of support which will attract younger enthusiastic people into their ranks from time to time. In the volunteer area that is sometimes quite hard. It is our responsibility to make sure that when we do have people involved in that sort of service we provide protection not only in the form of workers compensation - do not be mistaken about my view on this - but also in the form of training and equipping them and doing all the sorts of things that are required to make it a safe operation for them. We should provide that protection, with the view that the activities of our emergency services will not be confined to the ACT but that these services will be called on to deal with incidents outside of the ACT as well.

My congratulations go out to all of those emergency workers who were involved at Thredbo and to all of those who did not go but helped in the organisation here in the ACT. Their role was extremely important as well. My heartfelt sorrow goes out to all of those people who have been affected by the tragedy, especially through the loss of relatives and loved ones.

MR MOORE (4.03): Mr Speaker, it was very interesting to hear the comments from Mr Humphries as Minister for Police and Emergency Services and very interesting also to hear the comments from Mr Berry, who of course has been involved in these sorts of circumstances and understands better than any of the rest of us some of the associated risks, some of the care that needs to be taken and some of the difficulties that the men and women of the range of emergency services face when they do this sort of work. I would like to join both of those members in congratulating these people and recognising the fantastic work they put in on behalf of our community.

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