Page 4780 - Week 16 - Thursday, 29 November 1990
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MRS GRASSBY: I will repeat that, because we will be out of kilter. Under the current proposal, bushfire fighters can be sued for negligence arising from the decisions made during the course of fighting fires. However, the Government would step in and indemnify a person against the liability. In the other States and the Northern Territory, neither a firefighter nor the Government would incur a civil or criminal liability while performing a power or function under the Act. Let me again quote Mr Cheney on this matter:
It was the council's intention to provide firefighters with immunity from prosecution in the event of litigation arising from an action made in good faith and intent on the fire line. I do not believe that section 5P in the Amendment Bill is satisfactory for two reasons. One, because the Territory indemnifies a person against liability for damage or personal injury caused, either directly or indirectly, by performance or purported performance of firefighters, then this Bill provides the opportunity for people who suffer damages from bushfires to question the action of firefighters, whether in good faith or otherwise, and could lead to the Territory paying out enormous damages if firefighters fail to control a fire when one of their decisions, in hindsight, is deemed to be incorrect. To me this is suing the general for losing a battle.
Secondly, I believe that volunteer firefighters will be unwilling to fight fires if they understand there is a risk of being involved in legal proceedings for actions they take on the fire line, even though they may well be indemnified by the Government. I refer you to sections 54 and 64 of the Country Fires Act 1989 in South Australia. Both sections need to be read together and because of the difficulty of making decisions on a fire line then it has been the wisdom in the past that firefighters should be given far-reaching powers to carry out whatever actions they deem necessary to control the fire.
In the past it may have been acceptable for the Commonwealth to act as insurer of last resort. Although the Commonwealth Treasurer may not have been pleased to pay out millions of dollars for fire damages, it would have been only a drop in the ocean to the Commonwealth. As a result of this legislation, we are now in the situation where, if a bushfire began in New South Wales and then spread into Tuggeranong, the residents of Tuggeranong who suffered damage would not be able to take action against the New South Wales Bush Fire Brigade. However, if the fire began in the ACT and spread into Queanbeyan, the residents of Queanbeyan would be able to take action against the ACT Government.
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