Page 469 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 21 February 2018
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minimum crewing levels as a measure at all. That would be a bit of a lame joke if it were not such a serious issue.
The ambulance officers are rightly upset at the minister’s response: after being called out for not providing enough ambulance officers to meet the minimum crewing level, the minister decided that maybe they should just do away with the minimum crewing measurement completely. Now, that is not quite what he said; he said he will review it. But the intention is clearly to ask the question whether this is going to be our future measure or whether something less could be the future measure, and the ambulance officers know it. How sad that the government is operating under the principle that if you at first do not succeed, possibly redefine success; shift the goalposts.
Has the minister asked ambulance officers how they feel about the idea of doing away with minimum crewing levels? Did the minister consult with them at all before making that announcement? Will he? Or will the minister just do what is politically expedient for him and the Labor Party? I sincerely hope the minister will not adopt the same approach in today’s motion as he did last week. The motion today is very straightforward. It steps out the facts in a logical manner. It does not include much argument or editorial; it simply presents the facts and calls for an answer and for information.
I believe that the people of the ACT and the people of the ambulance service deserve an explanation. I am calling for these answers because Canberrans deserve open and accountable government. We have not heard much of it from this government in its latest iteration, but when Katy Gallagher was here one of her favourite phrases was “open and accountable government”. Tell them the truth even when the truth is uncomfortable for ministers, because the trust has been broken for ambulance officers and the reality is that their lives have been quite uncomfortable for some time now.
I acknowledge that the minister has announced new recruits, some of whom will be coming into the service over the next few months. That is good news and I thank the minister for this. However, the announcement does not wash away the past. It does not negate the government’s responsibility to explain to the people who elected them why the service is in the position it is in and was in in 2016-17.
I am calling on the government to provide an exhaustive list of the reasons for the amount of overtime worked in 2016-17. The public deserve to know the reasons why a massive 36,000 hours of overtime worked is not enough to maintain minimum crewing levels. There are no doubt multiple reasons for this, and not all of them preventable. However, people deserve to know the reasons, not just the reasons the government feels comfortable talking about.
I am also calling on the government to explain to the people they represent why, despite all of that overtime, 36,000 hours, the government failed to provide enough ambulance crews to meet the minimum crewing level 41.5 per cent of the time in 2016-17. It is not a radical request; it is a measured response to what is quite shocking information.
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