Page 1440 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2006
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to volunteer firefighters? No. Did they spend any money on improving the provision of firefighting appliances for the territory? No. Did they spend any money on strategic planning and incident management for major emergency events? No.
When the terrible and drastic fire occurred in 2003, the ESB were singularly unable to cope with the volume and the enormity of that fire. They did not even have the basic capacity to manage their radio systems, to manage their incident management, to manage all those issues that are fundamental for a basic emergency services organisation. That is not something that suddenly occurred in the 12 months between 2001 and 2003.That is not some failing that occurred in that short period of time.
There was a massive legacy of underfunding by the Liberal government, with insufficient resourcing to the Emergency Services Bureau and no maintenance of fire fuel reduction in the territory—none whatsoever. That is one of the legacies that this government has had to make up for. Of course it has meant increased levels of funding; of course it has meant the need to draw on the territory’s resources to meet these important community needs. That is the sort of hypocrisy we are dealing with in debating this motion today. For that reason I support the Chief Minister’s amendment.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (11.26): Mr Speaker, it is, of course, the job of government to talk up the economy and its economic management and I guess it is the job of the opposition to talk these things down. So I suppose the role of the crossbench is to try and provide a view that does not have to come from the standpoint of the opposition and perhaps to add a little more depth to the debate.
What are budgets for? While they are a measure of how governments spend and of our short-term economic future, they are really about showing how the government plans to deliver things that the Canberra community want, and sometimes things that they need but do not want. That is the role of government. It is obviously not an easy job. From my perspective of being here for nearly a couple of years, I suspect it is much easier to criticise than to do it.
The Greens, of course, think that budgets are about delivering a fair society and a healthy environment, as well as a sustainable economy. I have not heard much about a sustainable economy here today. To have a sustainable economy we need to invest in people. The ACT is a service delivery economy, and investing in the people is the major thing that we can do for our future. That, of course, means investing in education and investing in health. We need healthy people and people who are not only skilled up but wise. There are two governments, basically, in the ACT so we need to make sure that public servants have a well-rounded education.
We need to support business, of course, but we should be looking at supporting business that is actually going to offer something not just for the economy now but in the future—sustainable business. There are quite a number of businesses out there that offer services that will assist other aspects of our economy, such as environmental services and improving the education and skills of our people. Of course, we need to invest in infrastructure. Again, that infrastructure is not just so that we can get from our jobs to home as quickly as possible. It is about thinking about how we can reduce car resource use and our impact on the environment.
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