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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2792 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

comprehensive report and it did provide good sensible conclusions about and recommendations on many of those questions, it did fail to pin down many of the significant issues raised by the community after January 2003.

The report included many valuable comments and observations on key issues contributing to the January 2003 bushfires, yet some were not followed through and made into recommendations. For example, on page 111, the report states:

The report goes on to say, "The benefit of these agencies being able to maintain effective operational communications during emergencies is self-evident."However, on page 112, the report makes no recommendations at all on communication projects, let alone about a weakness that was identified. The government should ask where recommendations like this one are and concentrate on funding those aspects of emergency services requirements where funding can be allocated quickly to sort out those sorts of systemic weaknesses, particularly in the six to eight weeks that we have left before the next fire season. That is where the focus ought to be.

The report also stressed that the lessons of the December 2001 bushfires were not learned by the government. However, I believe that the report did not explore the result of this complacency sufficiently. Again, the inquiry quite thoroughly covers the issues of December 2001, but fails to follow through logically on the conclusions and consequent recommendations.

The government was complacent in its reaction to the December 2001 bushfires and did not learn the necessary lessons. This is borne out in an analysis of the submissions to the McLeod inquiry, which do list the systemic weaknesses identified in December 2001. It is disappointing to me, though, that Mr McLeod did not highlight all of the conclusions coming from that analysis.

Mr Speaker, on 13 November 2002 I moved that the Assembly should note that:

Those were not necessarily my analytical remarks only: they were based on appeals and concerns that were expressed to me by the rural and bushfire community during 2002. As a result of that, I suggested a number of actions, for example, school bushfire education and general education and learning in the community. I must say that I do recall quite clearly that the government scoffed at those at the time. That was during 2002.

We have publicly stated that we, the opposition, the Liberal Party, do take criticisms on the chin. We have stated our willingness to accept our share of the responsibility in the long seven to eight years leading up to the January 2003 disaster. There are many lessons that we have learnt about strategic planning which was undertaken during our watch and, indeed, during the watch of the Follett government prior to the Liberal

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