Page 2346 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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police station on Benjamin Way, adjacent to the existing Winchester police headquarters. That is a very important initiative for policing in the territory.
Finally, on the issue of emergency services, again we heard the usual commentary from Mr Pratt, Mr Smyth and others about emergency services. We have had this debate at some length and I do not think there is much to be added to that tonight, except to say that many of the assertions that those opposite make are simply false. What I will say, however, is that the government is addressing the issues that those opposite seek to critique. For example, Mr Pratt raised concerns about the adequacy of the RFS fleet. What he failed to acknowledge was that the government has invested $6½ million for a very substantial overhaul and upgrade of the RFS fleet. That project is on time. That project is on budget.
Mr Pratt talked about the issue with the tanker design for the RFS tankers that are being replaced. Again, what Mr Pratt failed to acknowledge was that what we are getting is a tanker design that has been signed off by all of the captains in the RFS. It was chosen through a process that involved RFS paid staff and RFS volunteers being paid to go interstate to look at the tankers from the different fire services interstate and come back with their report and their assessment. It is wrong to say that we are adopting the South Australian tanker model holus-bolus. In fact, we are adopting the South Australian tanker, with modifications as requested by the volunteer services. So again Mr Pratt unfortunately misrepresents the situation.
The government is providing $3½ million for augmentation of our operational response capacity. Twelve additional firefighters and 14 additional ambulance officers are being put in place as a result of that; that will complement and augment our operational response capacity, providing greater security in our response capacity at all times. It will also ensure secure storage of chemical, biological, radiological and other hazardous materials. It will also provide biomedical facilities for ambulance crews at the various ambulance stations and provide for more ability for our fleet maintenance staff to get out and maintain vehicles in stations, in sheds, rather than requiring vehicles in the fleet to be sent to the workshop. That will ensure that the ESA’s fleet of vehicles stays on the road longer and is reliable, with less down time.
Finally, Mr Pratt made some comments about chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear and also urban search and rescue capability. He does not seem to understand that there are two issues that need to be had in mind here. The first is that the Fire Brigade is the lead response agency for CBRN. It is in charge of CBRN incidents and—I do not know how more comprehensive I can get—all Fire Brigade staff are trained in CBRN response. So I do not quite understand Mr Pratt’s critique. He says we are not doing enough on CBRN capability, but the Fire Brigade is the lead agency and all Fire Brigade officers are trained in CBRN response. Of course, ambulance officers play a support role and so we have a percentage of ambulance officers who are also trained in CBRN response. That point needs to be made because I think Mr Pratt unfortunately has missed it.
Finally, in relation to corrective services, corrective services are moving ahead with a very important project, the establishment of the Alexander Maconochie Centre. That project is a very strong benchmark of effective project management. We have
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