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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 2 Hansard (4 March) . . Page.. 417 ..

MS TUCKER (10.39): I will make a few brief comments on this report. The committee obviously recommends that this bill be passed. This is an important appropriation to deal with the fires. It was good process, though, to have the opportunity to talk to the minister and officials about the details of the appropriation.

The few points I would like to make are related to the question of Planning and Land Management. There was a discussion in the hearing regarding how smooth the process was for people who want to rebuild-whether the process would be less or more smooth, depending on whether you chose to rebuild in exactly the same way.

We have commented on this in the report, but I want to make it clear that I have received concerns from some members of the community, particularly one architect who found difficulty with the process facilitated for rebuilding which involves some change to the house. The changes would not have seriously altered the footprint of the development, but would have made the house much more energy efficient. That meant that the process was quite slow.

There seemed to be a problem between what was being said at the recovery centre and the assistance provided there and what was happening in PALM. There is, in this appropriation, money to enable PALM to speed up its processes, and a commitment from the Treasurer and the government to ensure that, if people want to make their houses more energy efficient, if there is not a major change to the footprint, they will not be held up by bureaucratic processes.

I want to alert the minister to that most important issue. It is most important that this is dealt with. We all want to see this disaster taken as an opportunity by people who want to do that, and this is an example of how it can happen.

The committee also made comment about how well emergency services, especially the hospitals, are planning to deal with such events-emergencies-and we have made a comment on that in the report. I understand the McLeod inquiry, and probably the coronial inquiry as well, will potentially assist in how government and the various departments, such as the hospitals, manage these sorts of situations in the future.

At the moment, the committee has asked for a statement, but I understand that further work will occur now, through the McLeod inquiry and the coronial process, which may change or inform the government's response to such events. Hopefully, there will not be any similar events, but, if there are, we may be better prepared, because we can learn lessons from this disaster.

I want to speak briefly on environmental restoration. The point is made in this report that, while there is money put aside for rehabilitation in the areas that are in the parks-and there is serious work to be done there-there is also environmental damage resulting from the roads around Canberra being bulldozed. I have seen one of those roads, which basically caved in after the first rain. That is not necessarily going to be covered by the funding in this appropriation. I raised that and was given an assurance-I think from Mr Thompson-that they would look at that environmental issue in the urban area as

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