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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2808 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

have, that is something that needs to be found out as well and obviously appropriate steps taken. Mr McLeod makes a number of recommendations in respect of taking some appropriate steps at this stage.

I said earlier that perhaps I was not quite as complacent as the Chief Minister. I say that because on 17 January I was at a land development, probably a kilometre from the main Gungahlin shopping centre, which was being opened by Mr Corbell. It was a horrible day. It was hot, approaching the high 30s, and at that stage a strong wind was blowing from the south-west. All of us remember the pall that was hanging over Canberra.

I must admit as I prepared to go to Wollongong that night by bus to pick up my wife and the rest of the family who were on holiday, I had a slight trepidation about whether I should leave. But I dismissed that. Who would have thought that an event like this would happen? It did and because it did I think it is essential that we do everything we can.

A few people have wondered why the government has accepted all of the recommendations and has done so quickly. I think Ms Dundas made some excellent points in that, yes, it is sensible to accept a number of good, sensible, basic recommendations but we may well be rushing in in terms of accepting everything. Given that this report cannot possibly be expected to cover everything-and it is obvious that it certainly has not-I think the government might rue the day that it accepted all of the recommendations.

There are other reports to come. There is, of course, a coronial inquest. Having said that, I think it is absolutely essential that the recommendations that need to be put in place before the next fire season be actioned. Also, there are a few recommendations in the report which might in fact verge on being a little bit too cautious and there might not be the urgency that is needed to ensure that we are as prepared as we can be for the next fire season.

Someone said hindsight is a wonderful thing. Yes it is, and it is also something we do need to learn from. That is what we do all the time. Since self-government, numerous items that have come before this Assembly-things where systems have not worked or even individuals have not worked. People have been blamed, systems have been blamed and, as a result, there has been change. Our ability to look at things with hindsight and see if we cannot make things that little bit better so they do not happen again is a very healthy part of a democratic system. So we actually can learn from our mistakes.

I think it is important that we carry out what needs to be done now. As I said, I think Mr McLeod was somewhat too guarded perhaps in his language in some of those areas. We do need to back-burn. Have we back-burned as much as we could, and indeed perhaps should? I think we have had some good conditions to carry out such work.

I have a place on 25 acres near Pambula, and half of that is bushland. Unfortunately, I get down there on only rare occasions but I noticed that, at a time when we were not doing any back-burning, what looked like some fairly extensive and very positive

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