Mr WOOD - 2015-03-24
After Cyclone Lam went through Ramingining a state of emergency was declared and contractors were urgently needed to repair the damage to buildings or make them safe. My understanding is your department sent out contractors from Darwin to do that work. When they got there the Department of the Chief Minister, unbeknown to them, had sent a contractor from Nhulunbuy. While those contractors were trying to sort out who would repair which buildings, the Department of Housing also became involved, saying its contractor should be doing the repairs.
Can you say how much time was wasted because of the lack of coordination between departments and how much money was lost paying contractors for sit-down time while they waited for something to do? In a state of emergency should there not be one department coordinating this instead of three?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member for Nelson. A lot of hard work was put in by many people from different agencies after Tropical Cyclone Lam. To pinpoint criticism at a particular agency or group of people is pretty uncaring, given that everyone there was trying to do the right thing. I agree with you wholeheartedly that there needs to be a strategy around the approach, and there is one. In this instance DCM was the lead agency, as it should be, but when an event like this happens you have a police response as well as responses from agencies and emergency services.
I take my hat off to the Power and Water guys who were there earlier than anyone else, trying to restore power for as many people as possible. In any event, were lessons learnt by all agencies? Yes. Are there things which could be done better? Yes.
I do not want to take away from the good work done by the hard-working men and women with chainsaws, clearing roads and doing all of that work, but at the end of the day government is a big business. Different ministers and departments are responsible for different aspects of running a community, from power to housing, and infrastructure to education. It was in the front of our minds to get the schools open, get people into housing, keep them safe and get running water and power in those communities as soon as possible. That is what everyone was focused on.
I cannot tell you whether five minutes, hours or days were wasted by certain contractors, but when these things were recognised they were acted on as soon as possible. As the Chief Minister said earlier, congratulations to those people who worked damn hard. Other crews will go out after Tropical Cyclone Nathan to ensure the infrastructure is right.
The tent city at Galiwinku will be redeployed by the hard-working people there. Bryan Hughes has been named mayor of the tent city and is doing a fabulous job in coordinating. Those tents will be back up once the ground has dried to provide good housing.
Can you say how much time was wasted because of the lack of coordination between departments and how much money was lost paying contractors for sit-down time while they waited for something to do? In a state of emergency should there not be one department coordinating this instead of three?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member for Nelson. A lot of hard work was put in by many people from different agencies after Tropical Cyclone Lam. To pinpoint criticism at a particular agency or group of people is pretty uncaring, given that everyone there was trying to do the right thing. I agree with you wholeheartedly that there needs to be a strategy around the approach, and there is one. In this instance DCM was the lead agency, as it should be, but when an event like this happens you have a police response as well as responses from agencies and emergency services.
I take my hat off to the Power and Water guys who were there earlier than anyone else, trying to restore power for as many people as possible. In any event, were lessons learnt by all agencies? Yes. Are there things which could be done better? Yes.
I do not want to take away from the good work done by the hard-working men and women with chainsaws, clearing roads and doing all of that work, but at the end of the day government is a big business. Different ministers and departments are responsible for different aspects of running a community, from power to housing, and infrastructure to education. It was in the front of our minds to get the schools open, get people into housing, keep them safe and get running water and power in those communities as soon as possible. That is what everyone was focused on.
I cannot tell you whether five minutes, hours or days were wasted by certain contractors, but when these things were recognised they were acted on as soon as possible. As the Chief Minister said earlier, congratulations to those people who worked damn hard. Other crews will go out after Tropical Cyclone Nathan to ensure the infrastructure is right.
The tent city at Galiwinku will be redeployed by the hard-working people there. Bryan Hughes has been named mayor of the tent city and is doing a fabulous job in coordinating. Those tents will be back up once the ground has dried to provide good housing.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016