Page 4795 - Week 16 - Thursday, 29 November 1990
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These responsibilities may be commercially oriented, as are those of forestry and farming, or they may be conservation oriented, as are those of national parks and reserves. Each will, thus, have a differing attitude to the importance of fire and, in particular, to the use of fire as a tool for making safe fire fighting effective and, in many cases, possible.
Whilst the differing management objectives of the organisation in question have to be taken into account, it is fundamental that hazards must be addressed. The Bill now before the Assembly places an obligation on landowners to take all reasonable steps to prevent the occurrence and spread of fire from land under their management or control.
To ensure that the issue of fuel management is addressed, the Bill provides for inspectors, appointed under the principal Act, to compel landowners to manage hazards, if need be, by issuing a notice to remove hazards. I will comment on that in my closing remarks. Such notices will be issued through the Chief Fire Control Officer and will be aimed at ensuring that management action is taken to ameliorate the hazard by the most appropriate means. By placing this fuel management responsibility with landowners it is expected that effective resolution of the fuel management problem, in the most environmentally sensitive way possible, will be achievable.
I think, at this time, it is also appropriate for me to quote from the ACT Government's environment strategy for the 1990s. I refer to paragraph 2.21 on page 7 of this particular document where it states:
Fire management plans and assessment procedures will require that, whenever possible, fire suppression will be effected without the use of heavy earthmoving equipment, in wilderness or environmentally sensitive areas.
That is a very appropriate approach to take and, as my colleague Mr Collaery has already indicated, it is supported by the Conservation Council. Also, fire management plans will be prepared in consultation with the ACT Bush Fire Council and the Parks and Conservation Consultative Committee. They will take into account a number of principles which include reference to control burning being necessary for nature conservation reasons or where life or property is threatened, and so on. That is, in fact, in paragraph 2.22. What, in fact, the Government is doing, once again, is implementing a clear policy in this area. When taken into account with our proposals to provide greater security of tenure for rural leaseholders, there will be an even greater incentive for rural leaseholders to meet their responsibilities in this area.
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