Supplementary to question No. 11 in the
Legislative Council on 12 March 1986
Miss DUNN: Sir, can the Government say what the important issues were that
required 18 months of internal discussion? And while I accept the Attorney
General's earlier comment that he is now long enough in the Government to
learn not to make predictions, can he nevertheless be more specific than
•
20 soon as possible' or 'nearly there' and tell this Council whether and
when a search and rescue centre will be established?
Attorney General: My experience is neither here nor there. (laughter)
But
I can assure Miss Dunn that since the report of the reconvened court is I
think expected by the end of this month, it may be quite soon that the Executive
Council will be asked to advise on these matters. May I just add that in
trying to find an improved system for co-ordinating the response to search
alerts, there are a number of difficulties which should not be
and rescue
under-estimated.
Search and rescue operation can involve the use of men
and resources from the Marine Department, the Civil Aviation Department,
the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, the Royal Navy, the Air Force and the Marine
Police, And these organisations obviously have many different priorities and
many competing needs which must be taken into account in designing a system
for responding to requests for assistance in search and rescue
operations.
are on a
And the incidents themselves that can require search and rescue
wide range from major disasters involving aircrafts or ships on the one hand
difficueries to quite small incidents involving pleasure craft that had run into in bad
weather. The search and rescue centre of the kind which the court is
recommending must take account of all these different types of incidents and
their complexities. The working group has also identified a number of
alternative approaches to that recommended by the Marine Court of Inquiry, so
these matters require extensive examination. Sometimes the Government might
be criticised for going too quickly and rushing to conclusions. On this
tw
occasion, I think all matters have be considered properly.
P.2