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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2913 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Mr Smyth's first point is that there has to be consultation with stakeholders also, and I can agree to this point, although I understand from the government that they are doing that, so it seems rather unnecessary. However, I do not have a particular problem with the Assembly saying that is an important thing.

I am interested in the timing of the appointment of the commissioner. I am not sure that that is the right thing to do. It is not something that this motion is dealing with, but it is something that I will foreshadow I am intending to raise again in different ways. However, I do have a concern about employing someone to run an authority when we do not yet know what that authority will actually look like. I would have thought that, if you were employing someone on merit to do a particular job, you would want know what the job is.

On the other hand-and I see the dilemma here-we have been told that we have to get things happening quickly. Mr McLeod said that, and in fact the opposition says that one minute and then in the next minute it says, "We are going too fast. The government is going too fast."I am not sure where they are coming from in that regard, because I have definitely heard them say publicly that the government has failed, and is failing, to deal with the fire issue properly, that time is running out, that we cannot have a talkfest and so on. Now I am being told that the government is really rushing things, and I should slow it down.

Of course, the Liberals, while objecting to the government's taking action to set up the authority, have tabled their own legislation; so what they are actually saying is all rather confusing. I am interested in continuing the debate on this, because that is the dilemma: it is the tension between having to get things done reasonably quickly, because obviously there is time pressure with the next fire season coming up, and showing the community that the government is actually dealing with the concerns. It is also very important to ensure that things are done properly. That is a tension and I think it needs to be worked on thoughtfully. I do not think it is particularly useful to start making that into a combative issue in the Assembly.

The second point of the motion was about increasing rather than decreasing, or removing, services. I am really not sure what that is about. I am assuming the Liberals will say more about that. I do not know that the government is decreasing or removing services. Maybe it is and if it was discussed I may have missed it, so perhaps someone can just say more about that. I see Mr Smyth handing Mrs Dunne something so maybe she will talk about it, but obviously I want to listen to how the government responds to that as well.

I am not sure what the opposition's third point is about either. They want an analysis of the future needs of counselling and other services. I do not know what "other services"means at this point. Again, the argument on this point depends on what the government says here. If the Liberal opposition actually wants a mapping out of the needs of counselling and other services for the future, and that has not been done, it would seem very unrealistic to ask the government to do it by tomorrow. If I am persuaded that this is a very important thing and that the government is not doing it, then I would suggest that the Liberals actually amend their own motion and do not use tomorrow's date, because otherwise it makes a joke of doing the work properly.

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