Page 684 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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like South Africa, do not. I would urge them to take steps, because they are in a position to do so by withholding aid and exerting pressure, and it behoves them to do that.
I was a bit amazed, but not surprised, to hear people calling the no-confidence motion a stunt. I think that is utterly ridiculous. Mr Pratt was quite right in saying that the action of those volunteers surprised even us. We knew they were fed up; they had been contacting Mr Pratt’s office and other offices in the opposition for some time, expressing their disappointment, indeed disgust, at what the government is doing. But it was an extraordinary action out there today—volunteers, senior people, captains and vice-captains of brigades, resigning, people putting keys in a bin and leaving them there and leaving their trucks there. They are so frustrated, they are so upset and they are so concerned at the actions of this government and this minister.
We would have been derelict in our duty if we had not come in here and moved a motion of no confidence. The motion of no confidence was finished, indeed, before lunchtime, and there is nothing to stop a government, if it wants to finish its business, from suspending standing orders and perhaps going after six. If you finish by seven, you do not have to worry about overtime for the staff. Or we could have come back tomorrow, if need be, if there was urgent business.
So to call a simple request for documents—documents that, if they are that readily available, why can the government not just provide them, as any reasonable government would—a stunt is ludicrous, because the government has the ability to deal with any additional business it might want to by staying later tonight or, indeed, by coming back tomorrow. The government called the motion of no confidence a stunt—when we had that extraordinary scene out there! Those men and women, who provide so much to our community, were so upset and so angry at this government that they took that action. I have not seen that before; I do not think any other members have seen that before—and that was no stunt. If things like that happen, yes, we will move no-confidence motions—that is our duty—and it is something we do not do lightly, because you cheapen them if you do things lightly.
Today was an extraordinary day, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. I hope Minister Corbell is true to his word when he seemed to indicate out there that he would talk to them. I know it is better late than never, and if he is talking to them I hope he listens, because he can make improvements. He can rethink his stupid actions in absolutely losing all of the goodwill of those volunteers—and think of the problems that will affect the territory if we continue to see a 25 to 40 per cent reduction in the number of volunteers in those brigades.
We have seen some pretty nasty fires—thankfully not in Canberra—elsewhere during this fire season. We are in the grip of some type of climate change. All the experts are telling us that it is not going to get any better. We are at risk of greater fires. It is crucially important that we have proper resourcing and proper measures in place to ensure that we can meet the challenges—and meeting the challenges are those brave men and women who are the volunteer fighters in our rural fire brigades, and the SES members too. Let us not forget them; there are a number of SES members there—the wonderful people who provide help to residents when there are things like the
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