Page 2708 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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an overarching security review to ensure that the prison is functioning as it should, that it is in line with community expectations, that the violence is stemmed, that drug use is stemmed and that the mobile phones, the weapons and the other unthinkable actions that are occurring on the inside are stopped.
MRS JONES (Molonglo) (9.38): As a shadow minister, I stand to speak to the emergency services portion of JACS expenditure and the valuable work that members of our emergency services do across Canberra every single day of the year, and how they are supported. Firstly, I acknowledge the dedication and hard work of the men and women of the various services: Fire and Rescue, including the CFUs, the Ambulance Service, our SES and the Rural Fire Service. This group of people put themselves on the line every single day to help keep all of us safe, or as safe as possible.
I think no-one in this place would doubt the importance of the emergency services to the ACT. I note that last year on the ABC the Chief Minister stated that funding a 24/7 365-day-per-year service comes at a cost. With this in mind, it is important for us to assess how funds are allocated within our Emergency Services Agency. It is absolutely vital that the people of Canberra have complete confidence when faced with an emergency and call 000 and that they are guaranteed the very best possible response and the very best possible service that we can provide.
This is one of the reasons I am concerned about the plan being implemented to establish a call centre fully manned by call operators rather than the model that has been successful to date with the expertise of day-to-day fire and rescue personnel inside the call centre as well as others. Many of the firies have expressed serious concern to me regarding the change, saying that there is potential for this approach to result in delays of services reaching those in need, which could result, obviously, in greater loss of property and, in a worst-case scenario, a possible loss of life.
I have been interested to learn that to get to flashover point in a modern room takes a matter of seconds whereas, with the furnishings that we used to put in our houses, flashover point in a room—which is where the whole room ignites because of the level of chemical in the air—used to take eight or 10 minutes. Now it is a matter of less than a minute generally because of the types of furnishings that we have in our houses. So timing is very important. Anything that would slow down the arrival of an emergency vehicle to a house, whether it is for fire, a medical emergency or other emergencies, should be very carefully scrutinised.
The question has to be asked: what is the purpose of changing the comm centre from being manned partly by firefighters to one manned purely by call-takers? What is the benefit of this change? What is the problem that the government is trying to solve with this change? Or is it merely just an attempt to save money? We have trained firefighters who innately understand the operational process when responding to a structure fire or other type of rescue. They have the expertise to operationally understand what the crisis is and are able to allocate suitable and available teams and appropriate appliances as needed.
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