Page 881 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 18 March 2015
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clear action plan—a draft, as it is—a literature review and an independent oversight group, and that they are set up to succeed. It will succeed, because the commissioner, myself, the Transport Workers Union and every member of ACT Ambulance Service, from the newest front-line recruit up to the chief officer, will make a commitment to have the best service that this country and this community can have.
I thank Mr Corbell for taking this commission through. It was difficult. It has been confronting for the service. It has stepped up to that, Mr Smyth, and change will be delivered.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (6.11): Obviously this is an important discussion we are having this afternoon, and I am pleased to have an opportunity to contribute to the debate. I certainly understand that Mr Smyth is very keen to see an ACT Ambulance Service that is working well and is free from mistrust or inefficiencies or cultural problems. I think we all share that view, and that has certainly been the commentary in the public domain today.
When there are problems, or accusation of problems, in an institution like ACTAS it is of course very concerning. I certainly share Mr Smyth’s concern and his desire for a professional, respectful and well-operating ambulance service. Minister Burch and the other members of the government presumably share the same concerns. We all acknowledge that there have been issues in the service; I do not think there has been any secret made of that fact. The recently released report, the one Minister Burch put out today—as well as the media reports—has brought this into the light. Minister Burch has promised to respond to these problems with the utmost seriousness and commitment, and I think that is a commitment that we can be pleased about.
To get to the crux of this debate, it appears to me that Mr Smyth wants to make public the full O2C report, despite presumably being aware of the comments that have been made about the legal advice that releasing the report could have adverse effects for particular individuals. It could identify and damage individuals and compromise people’s privacy, breach a promise to participants that their responses would be confidential and, as a corollary to that, jeopardise staff participation in future surveys and reviews of their workplaces.
My view, which I am sure I am going to get some feedback for, is that the O2C report does not need to be released, potentially causing all of those harms, particularly when the minister has today released the blueprint report which adopts all of the recommendations from the O2C report. In some circumstances there has to be a mechanism whereby personal and confidential information can be reported to a government for action without that information being released in a way that will have an adverse impact on individuals.
The important outcome is that the recommendations are adopted and that the government responds to them—not that the government releases the personal and sensitive commentary of individuals in ACTAS who provided information in confidence. It is simply one of the challenges of government to be able to move forward in a way that does not reveal confidential information or expose participants
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