Page 608 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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however, we want you to micro-manage it. We would like you, please, to make sure that we buy the right type of photocopier and the right type of fasteners to go on the hoses.” We want him to micro-manage his departments? How stupid is that.
I would like to ask this, by way of comparison. When the Liberal government were micro-managing emergency services in 2001, were they micro-managing the clearing of bushfire fuel loadings out there in the national park? I do not think so. Were they micro-managing such things as the creation of community fire units? I do not think so. The fact is that they were not micro-managing; they were not doing any management of those particular services.
When we came to government in 2001, it was because there was an expression of confidence in the Labor government’s ability to manage these things. We had an awful battle to recover from the debacle that was left to us in 2001, particularly around bushfire safety. It was not the Liberals who did the original bushfire management plan; it was not them at all.
We talk about confidence in Mr Corbell. Correct me if I am wrong, but Mr Corbell actually lived in one of the suburbs very badly affected by the 2003 bushfires. Mr Corbell’s vote at the local polling booth increased in the 2004 election, as it did in the surrounding polling booths. To me, that is an expression of confidence from the community in Mr Corbell.
Mrs Burke: Was—past tense.
MR HARGREAVES: Was—yes, right? I believe you! The voters in the 2004 election did not believe you, and they will not believe you again. They did not believe you in 2001, they did not believe you in 2004 and they will not believe you in 2008.
What Mr Smyth is trying to do is this. He is pretty clever at it—I will pay the credit—because he is a real wordsmith, this fellow: a really good wordsmith. He is saying that we have management changes and we have operational changes. The management change concerns the structure of the management of the Emergency Services Agency as opposed to the authority. That is about senior officer level and upwards. Then we have got operational changes. For example, the putting together of the fire services is an operational matter. Mr Smyth—quite cleverly, with his wordage—tried to weave some intricacies through all of this and mix the two up. He tried to make sure that the two actually functioned.
He would remember when there were significant changes in the RFS and he would remember when there were significant changes in the SES. We had an enormous groundswell of discontent at that time. Some of those people packed their bags and left. Mr Speaker, the thing is that they did that under the Liberals’ watch. What did the Labor party do? The Labor party said, “This is a management issue. We will watch it and see what happens.” Did we bring a no-confidence motion on it? No.
But do you know what those opposite did, Mr Speaker? They went around and stoked them. They went around to their little mates—their leakers in the service—to keep feeding all this nonsense to Mr Smyth. They stoked them. The honourable member of
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