Page 4101 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
firefighters from common law legal actions resulting from legitimate activities that may be undertaken during bushfire suppression. The main purpose of this Bill is to address that issue by providing statutory reassurance to volunteer bushfire fighters of the Government's commitment to ensuring the maximum indemnity cover possible.
In addition it provides reciprocal cross-border protection provisions for bushfire fighters and allows for the creation of an organisational structure which recognises and provides for the coordination of all the Territory's bushfire fighters. The Bill also addresses management responsibility for fire prevention and fuel management by placing a legal obligation on landowners, which includes the ACT Government Service as the Bill binds the Crown in the right of the ACT, to exercise sound bushfire prevention practices in the way they manage the land under their control.
This obligation is supported by providing inspectors, currently appointed under the Careless Use of Fire Act 1936, with the powers to inspect fire hazardous areas and, through the Chief Fire Control Officer, recommend action to be taken to ameliorate the identified hazardous situation. At present all bushfire fighters are legally covered for damage that may be caused in extinguishing a fire, but are not obviously indemnified from costs or legal action that may result from injury and subsequent common law legal action that may occur as a consequence of such fire suppression action.
This circumstance exposes the ACT bushfire fighter to possible legal action and costs that are not clearly provided for within the current protection provisions of the Act. This is a most unsatisfactory situation if we wish to maintain a volunteer firefighting force within the ACT. This Bill corrects that anomaly, and brings the protection of bushfire fighters acting in a bona fide manner in line with the provisions that apply in every other mainland State or Territory within Australia.
Volunteer bushfire fighters are obviously important in providing the level of protection from wildfire that most of us have come to expect. However, a volunteer firefighting organisation is currently not recognised within the provisions of the Act, although such a very efficient organisation exists. This curious anomaly is rectified within the Bill by providing a means to give such recognition and powers to a rural firefighting service. The structure, functions and powers applying to the rural firefighting service will be defined in a rural fire control manual. The manual will be a disallowable instrument under the provisions of the Subordinate Laws Act 1989. The Bill allows for six months from the commencement of these amendments for the Bush Fire Council to prepare such a manual.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .