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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2901 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

(4) notes that the fast approaching summer contains bushfire conditions that are anticipated to eclipse those of 2001/2002 with severe weather conditions likely to exacerbate a desperately dry situation;

(5) urges the Government to immediately introduce universal bushfire prevention and safety education for all schools in the ACT, planned and coordinated by the Education Department and delivered by Emergency Services personnel and other approved trainers.

A great leap forward and a great recommendation.

There is one thing you should observe from this that was brought forward. Do you know when it was brought forward? November 2002. What happens in November 2002? Schools close down. This opposition, which was warning the government, was telling us that the sum total of this recommendation, this resolution that they brought before the Assembly, was to have a schools program that could not have been implemented until the beginning of this school year, after the bushfires, and therefore invalid to the events of the time.

Don't let that worry you. If we had taken notice of the letter of your resolution, the difference between the situation then and at the time of the bushfires would have been zero. Face it: you took from January through to November to even think of this. You brought it in at a time when schools were about to close down for the summer. You wanted us to educate the school children, and you were saying that this might have made a difference in 2002. Mr Pratt, that is just not logical. That is why you are dangerous.

Mr Pratt: You are clutching at straws.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Members of the opposition, please be quiet.

MR QUINLAN: That is why you are a danger in this place. I am rather concerned that, as I have said, the opposition has not made itself part of the community that wants to recover from this bushfire. You do not want to recover. You do not want a recovery; in fact, quite the opposite: you want to perpetuate the process for your own advantage.

I have gazumped, to some extent, Mr Wood, by rising to my feet before he would, as the Minister for Emergency Services, because I was, for part of the period 2001-2002, the Minister for Emergency Services. I informed this place-and you will find this in the Hansard of November-that, early in the year 2001, I had instructed the Emergency Services Bureau to conduct an education campaign.

The McLeod report recognises considerable elements of an education campaign. If you would like to consult a cutting service, you will find considerable advice coming out of Emergency Services, warning the public of the ACT. You will find a very large spread in August 2002, before Mr Pratt's motion, which includes advice about minimising the effect of fire. You may recall that all of those things that are on page 174 and 175 of the McLeod report were done.

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