Page 521 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Finally on this point, I think what was most disappointing to bushfire victims was in fact the way that, when it appeared there would be some accountability for this government, they did all they could to undermine that coronial process, including by attempting to remove the coroner who was simply doing her job to get to the bottom of this issue. I think that is one of the things that still hurts bushfire victims.
It is one thing to be tested and to fail in the face of a natural disaster, but it is another thing altogether not to honour your commitments afterwards and to try and remove accountability by getting rid of the independent judicial officer looking into this. I think that will, again, forever be a stain on this government and on the leadership of this government, some of whom, of course, are still here in the form of Mr Corbell and, indeed, the current Chief Minister.
As I said earlier, we certainly support the work of our emergency services staff and volunteers. There is no doubt, as is implicit I think in this motion, that there have been additional funds put towards bushfire management, and that is a good thing. We certainly in the opposition do not begrudge the government spending more money on protecting the community from bushfires. What we always do is try and make sure that when they spend it, they spend it well. There have been, unfortunately, some examples in recent years where that has not been the case.
We can look at, of course, the Emergency Services Agency headquarters where we saw a massive blow-out in costs. Of course, there was the fire shed that did not fit trucks. A $60-odd million blow-out in that ESA headquarters is an example of how money has not been spent well.
We do not mind—we support, in fact, very strongly—the government committing additional resources to this area. But they need to do it well so we get maximum value for money, so that we get the absolute best possible equipment for our money. If you cannot manage these major projects, of course, it means that there is less money for this important task and there is less money for other important tasks as well.
We have seen some of the other failures which I am sure Mr Smyth will touch on as well. I think we have seen some interesting things in terms of funding and in terms of approach. One of the recommendations, of course, following the bushfires was for an independent agency. We have long advocated for that. The government walked away from that, even though it said it would adopt all of the recommendations. We believe that that is a vulnerability.
The 2012 report on government services highlighted that ACT government real funding in fire service organisations had decreased from $55.6 million in 2009-10 to $49.4 million in 2010-11. That is a $6.2 million drop in real funding for an important service to the community. Of course, we see in the 2013 report on government services that there is an increase in that funding in 2011-12 to $64.5 million.
The question is: why the drop in the years prior? So there has been a bit of an ad hoc approach. It has not been a consistent increase of the funding that we need. We have seen it go down and then go up again. But we certainly welcome additional resources.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video