Page 2659 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 1993
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when the chips are being fried. When householders are consciously making a decision themselves to protect their family against fire, they will tolerate that. They will switch the item off while the roast is cooking or, as I am often wont to do, take it down while the roast is cooking and put it back up again when the roast is finished.
If the Government installs these in Housing Trust properties, it is immediately taking over that sense of personal responsibility. It is just that the Government has done it; it is there. Many tenants would, I suspect, get annoyed with the fact that it goes off regularly. They would take them down and put them in a drawer. They would be lost; they would be forgotten. Personal responsibility, which is something that Liberal politicians are fond of giving us sermons on from time to time, is the important issue in fire protection and the use of cheap household smoke detectors. They are a great idea. We encourage them. We are promoting their use through free installation. But it does require the tenant - public or private - or home owner to take responsibility for protecting themselves against fire.
There is also an issue, Mr Cornwell, of the Government's legal liability. If we as the Government install smoke detectors and then there is a problem with their maintenance - the battery is not replaced, the thing falls off the wall or it gets lost - we have in a sense put our hands up as assuming responsibility for fire protection in that house. We do install smoke detectors in some public housing, such as the aged persons complexes which are coming more and more onto the market now. In our capital works program in the Housing Trust there is much emphasis on aged persons accommodation. Many members would have seen the excellent accommodation the trust is now providing for Canberra's elderly community.
Most of those complexes have smoke detectors, but we use the permanently installed smoke detector. We install a smoke detector which we think will last the life of the asset, which is a 25- to 30-year life. We get a quite high quality item. The cost, we estimated, was about $150, and I have no doubt that a local entrepreneur could provide a mains wired smoke detector for a lower price. I question whether it is precisely the same unit as we use, because we are looking at, I have to admit, the better end of the market with a view to it lasting the economic life of the premises. We do the same in facilities that we are providing for special care tenants - people with intellectual disability, for example. When the ACT Government assumes responsibility for installing fire protection devices we really have to install the device which will last for a long period or be relatively maintenance free, and does not rely on a piece of velcro and a battery to make it work.
The Government enthusiastically supports the Opposition's new interest in smoke detectors. We are glad to see that they have noticed that the fire trucks for some months have been promoting smoke detectors. They have noticed that we have had Fire Brigade officers in the stores on weekends promoting these things. While we obviously have concerns, as the Opposition does, for our Housing Trust tenants, and indeed, as a second priority, for our Housing Trust property asset, the use of the small portable smoke detector is not supported by the Government as a compulsory installation by the ACT Government. We think that it is essentially the responsibility of the resident to have that device installed, to take responsibility for its maintenance and to take some care about fire protection. We are prepared to promote that by way of our free installation offer, which has been very successful and which we will continue for some time.
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