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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2810 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

the village of Tharwa. Yes, we certainly have to be very well prepared for the next fire season.

It is absolutely essential that we do that. I think, if anything, some of these recommendations may not go far enough. I did not see-I could be corrected if I am wrong-some recommendations in relation to better training, not only for the firefighters and crews themselves but perhaps for any headquarters that is associated with the Emergency Services Bureau or anything that comes out of that.

I can recall that certainly in the military you regularly exercise a headquarters. You have what is called tactical exercises without troops and then you have actual exercises where you go through a certain scenario. We have done that in the past in Australia. In fact, we have gone through some pretty horrendous scenarios such as Cold War civil defence. We would go through worse case scenarios in terms of if Australia was nuked. Thank God that has never happened and we hope it never will. But it is important for organisations at all levels and headquarters to train and prepare for worst case scenarios. Perhaps there could have been a bit more in this report in relation to that.

This is not a case of the debate being polarised. I heard the Greens say they do not mind hazard reduction. They do not mind urban infill but I do not know whether in practice they actually support something like that. I understand that a fire like the one in Canberra has the same effect on the environment as 12 months of greenhouse gases. It was catastrophic. There are certain specimens which will probably never recover in our life time.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.

MR STEFANIAK: Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Chair. I will finish on that point.

MRS DUNNE: Under standing order 47 I seek leave to speak again.

Leave granted.

MRS DUNNE: I speak again in debate today because of the somewhat uncharacteristic outburst by Ms Tucker. I gained the impression that Ms Tucker was stunned by an article I wrote that was published last week in the Canberra Times. I think I need to set the record straight. At no stage did I state in that article that the Greens were opposed to hazard reduction burning because it was unnatural-and those were the words that were used by Ms Tucker. I did state, however, that the line Senator Brown took was a traditional Green approach to such issues-it was absolutist, lacking in nuances and it made no concessions to practicalities.

That is what happened. As I said in the article, Ms Tucker drew back from the position that was espoused in the Senate by Greens leader, Senator Brown, and she said that she was in favour of possible hazard reduction burning. Hazard reduction burning is theoretically possible. Ms Tucker's speech today was akin to the Greens approach to in-fill. They are always in favour of in-fill but when we come up with examples of where we should have in-fill, they always say no. That is what was

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