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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 3572 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

minds of young people who might be inclined towards arson and who in most cases simply do not appreciate how devastating the outcome of their actions could be should they seek the thrills of lighting fires. With regard to this very small-I stress, very small-but potentially reckless group within the community, the question is: how should we intervene in the hope of turning their minds to more positive pursuits and of building within them respect for the community and the environment?

Mr Speaker, that brings me to the point where we need to examine how effective our fire prevention programs are for children; that is, firstly, the need to educate the vast majority of youth who are sensible but may still be ignorant of the dangers of accidentally starting a bushfire and/or who need to be equipped with safety first knowledge to get them out of dangerous bushfire situations as they occur and, secondly, the need while undertaking such broadly targeted education programs to reach into the hearts and minds of the kids I was talking about before, the kids at risk who might be inclined to do something silly later.

Some schools carry out excellent programs, but many conduct inadequate training or nothing at all. That is not good enough. We cannot afford a haphazard approach to preventive education on an issue as important to the community's wellbeing as this one. This issue is serious enough to warrant departmental control. Indeed, like important curriculum and health issues, it warrants being taken out of the schools-based management arena and undertaken as a centrally controlled departmental program.

Mr Speaker, I would suggest roughly the following structure for education delivery: training teams of, for example, a couple of trained, experienced firemen joined, importantly, by a teacher in conducting training, perhaps with combined classes of up to 60 students at one time. The training period would cover approximately one hour. This would incorporate video and personal experience presentations. If logistically practical, fire units might display their vehicles and equipment in the playground at lunchtime.

A training team might spend up to five days in a particular school. As many training teams as possible would be drawn from the urban and bushfire units to undertake training in a number of schools concurrently. Teachers would be a vital part of the training team so that their authority was established to continue vital follow-up training and education.

I believe that the training should be commenced as early as possible, perhaps even at the year 2 to year 3 level, as an important though subtle component of this training is to intervene with children at risk who may go on to arson. It is most important that they be educated with their peers from the earliest possible age. Surely, teaching and then repeating the values of respect for our bushland and for property in general from the earliest possible age would impact positively on all kids-the majority who are sensible but uninformed and the minority who are at risk and need to be taught and have the values hammered home to them.

For example, I would commend an excellent video I have seen that was taken by Mr James Sandison, who has had a lot to do with regional and ACT bushfire programs and bushfire contingency planning. He lives on the land, he lives in the region, and recently-in fact, last year during the bushfire season-he shot a video which represents a harrowing battle to save a property which was burnt over, that is, the bushfire burnt

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