Page 597 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (11.12): Mr Corbell said a number of things which I will come to, but one of his statements was that he deeply regrets the action of volunteers today. So he should. I have lived in Canberra all my life apart from three short years, and I have seen a few demonstrations. But I have never seen 150 to 200 volunteers turn up with all their vehicles; seen people like drivers and group captains throw the keys in a bin; or seen experienced people like Val Jeffery, Pat Barling and other area captains hand in letters of resignation, leave their vehicles and go off.
These are people at the front line, who give of their own spare time to defend this community from emergencies—in the case of most of the ladies and gentlemen who turned up today, from bushfires: bushfires that in recent times have ravaged this territory. I find that quite an extraordinary action. I can understand it. Yes, I think the minister should regret it: it is a damning indictment of his administration and, at the end of the day, it is a damning indictment of the minister.
Mr Corbell said a number of things which I should touch on. He spoke about not wanting to be involved. Well, Mr Corbell, you are. You are the minister. We do not want bean counters being involved and being the ones who determine how something as important as the ESA should operate. Yes, we want it to be efficient. Yes, it can be efficient. It can be efficient as a stand-alone organisation. But we want some control and some oversight by the minister.
It is interesting to see what the minister himself actually said on that. He basically contradicted some of his statements. He said that his role is to ensure that the ESA is run appropriately, effectively and within its budget and that it meets the needs of the community in times of emergency. That is what he said he has to do—appropriately and efficiently meet the needs of the community in times of emergency.
How can the ESA meet the needs of the community in times of emergency, and how can it do that efficiently and appropriately, when all the volunteers have no confidence in the structure they have? Today they have shown that lack of confidence in the most extreme way available to them, by senior people resigning and by people leaving their vehicles out there. That is a demonstration of their confidence in this minister’s ability to conduct his role to efficiently and appropriately meet the needs of the community in times of emergency. That is simply something that is not going to happen. It is simply something that the minister cannot do. No-one has any confidence in him doing so.
Yes, that should be his role. I accept that that should be his role. He cannot just adopt a completely hands-off approach. He cannot just wipe his hands of it. Clearly what he has put in place is of great concern to these people—in many cases people who have been involved for 15, 20, 30, 40 or, in some cases, 50 years; people who should be listened to, not just consulted. I hear him say, “Yes, I have met with the commissioner 15 times. I have met with some of these people. I meet with volunteers.” He is a volunteer himself. That is fine; that is a start.
But there is not much point in meeting people if you do not listen and if you ignore the advice of people who are experts in the field—people who have served on things
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