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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2788 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

I think the answer is that you cannot carry out an objective analysis of this report in two days because, as we pointed out through our questions in question time today, there are many things that are unanswered here, simply not answered. To give Mr McLeod credit, this is a huge area to cover in a short period of time with limited resources, but there are still significant questions that need to be answered so you can make an objective assessment as to whether or not these recommendations actually do match what we need.

There is probably not much risk in properly accepting most of these recommendations, but each one, I think, needs to pass the wider scrutiny of professional firefighters and others. There are some-for example, the recommendations touching police and emergency powers, recommendations 51 and 57, and those adopting the Victorian template, I think those are recommendations 2 and 53-for which I think the scrutiny needs to be particularly rigorous, because other jurisdictions are travelling different paths. For instance, New South Wales, about which a recommendation has been made, takes a very different view than does Victoria.

The argument that the recommendations have to be rushed into place to be ready for the 2003-2004 fire season is commendable politics, but you have to qualify that by saying you have to have the operational requirement to get them right. The fact that there is contradictory evidence in the recommendations, let alone the report, means we do need to take this seriously. The fact that, for instance, the government says in its response that it will not have the tankers by the start of the fire season and it does not intend to have the authority set up until 1 July 2004, would indicate that perhaps there is some time to be taken here.

On the housekeeping and operational aspects of the report, I think the important thing is to get the leadership right. Yet we have jumped the gun and advertised to fill a position when we do not actually know the structure into which that position will fit. How can we competently judge that the individual who will run emergency management or the model, in the future, will actually have the qualifications to run the model as it devolves?

I think what Mr McLeod demonstrates in spades is that not much of that thought has happened, and that what we need to do is illustrate with a few examples some of the things that have gone wrong. For instance, forest fuel was allowed to accumulate over a period of time. Certainly, over the 12 or 14 years of self-government we allowed forest fuel to accumulate. Why has that not been brought to the attention of successive governments? What do they do to ameliorate that impact?

The fact that firefighters were sent home on the first day when they should have fought the Bendora fire, at that time only 500 square metres in area, still begs questions as to what happened. Apparently, safety was raised. Mr McLeod contradicts that after viewing the tape. The issue of fire access trails that could not be located and were overgrown anyway was covered in page 17, yet we are saying "Leave the fire access trails to those who have been managing them anyway."The question is: can they do it and will they do it better? I am sure they will, but is it appropriate that they should?

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