Page 382 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
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Opposition members interjecting—
MR STANHOPE: I can understand why the Treasurer would stand and take a point of order—
Mr Mulcahy: I’m not Treasurer yet!
MR STANHOPE: why the shadow Treasurer would take a point of order on any discussion anywhere in the ACT. The one discussion the Liberal Party do not want now or at any time between now and the next election is: what services are they going to cut to cover the $100 million of recurrent moneys that they have promised not to collect?
Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Come back to the subject matter of the question.
MR STANHOPE: That is a policy, in addition to their policy on workers compensation, which the people of Canberra, most particularly public servants, would be very keen to hear about. Why will the Liberal Party in this place—and, significantly, Senator Humphries, when it comes to the vote in the Senate—not commit to support the working conditions of public servants, particularly workers compensation coverage during these most important times of travel to and from work and during their recess breaks? (Time expired.)
Emergency services—restructure
MRS BURKE: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Mr Corbell. Minister, on ABC radio this morning Val Jeffrey said this regarding your proposed restructure:
It’s not just a matter of the number of bureaucrats, it’s the politics and attitudes that come with bureaucracy.
These sentiments echo the deep concern expressed this week by Mr Barling and many other volunteers. Minister, why have you ignored the warnings of volunteers about returning the ESA to a bureaucracy?
MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, as I have indicated in answers to previous questions today, we are not returning the ESA to a bureaucracy. In fact, the decision to place the ESA within the justice portfolio means that there is less bureaucracy within the ESA. The restructure that I announced the day before yesterday also highlights the streamlining at senior executive level. It means less bureaucracy, not more.
In relation to Mr Jeffrey’s views, I can only restate what I said before. Mr Jeffrey is an excellent and very highly respected volunteer firefighter with many years of knowledge and expertise in firefighting. I respect his views when it comes to matters around dealing with fires. But Mr Jeffrey is not an expert in the management of a large public sector organisation, a large public sector emergency response
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