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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Tuesday, 4 May 2004) . . Page.. 1719 ..

preparation of the bushfire fuel management plan. The plan is prepared with the relevant land managers.

In the case of reserved land, the Conservator of Flora and Fauna, who is also the CEO of the environment department, is the responsible land manager, and so has direct input into the plan, as it was explained to my office. There is no formalised arrangement for consulting with relevant types of experts, but the practice has been to consult widely. The last bushfire fuel management plan, which had been put into operation but not completed by any means when the bushfires came last year, was developed by a good cross-section of experts.

This is a difficult area to object to and, indeed, the government response to my concerns about this exemption was that it would be inappropriate to give the Conservator of Flora and Fauna an effective veto over the bushfire fuel management plan. I think that this objection assumes that there is an inherent conflict between bushfire fuel management and conservation. This is strange as it is definitely not in the interests of a reserve to be at risk of being completely burned out.

However, it is also not in the interests of a reserve, nor, arguably, the interests of bushfire risk reduction, to have too frequent burns in the wrong season, and without proper consideration of the effects of the types and timing of fire on the particular species in an area. It is also important to consider the effects of the different species, ecosystems and landforms on the progress of fire. It is quite clear from evidence that if inappropriate burning occurs you actually end up with the most flammable species left. So I do not accept in whole the argument of the government. There is probably more work to be done in refining the statutory requirements of preparation of bushfire fuel management plans.

My great concern is that, although the process has included many points of view in the past, I am aware of some views that it did not take into account well enough and particularly, as I said, the expertise on fire ecology—that inter-relation between fire and ecology. So I am concerned that in a political context of extreme views, the processes, which did take in a range of expertise, will be narrowed. This is not to distrust the responsible officers, but the plan is ultimately ministerially approved, and I have seen examples of what really seems to have been overkill on Oakey Hill—a reaction to political pressure and inexpert advice.

So as I say, in this context, and without the requirements to bring in all the relevant expertise, I am not comfortable with the proposal to let a bushfire fuel management plan stand in for a licence assessment. I understand that this is a bit controversial but I say again that it is certainly not in the interests of a nature reserve to be burnt out and so the aims of bushfire prevention and nature conservation are not at odds. The thing is to ensure that the knowledge of the particular ecology is considered, and there is no guarantee in the bushfire fuel management plan process that this will occur.

Finally, I am not happy with the exemption given to plans of management. This, I think, is a less controversial amendment. Plans of management are prepared for all public land in the ACT. While there will be some detailed considerations in the plans, they will not look at specific sites of proposed activities in the same level of detail as should be used when making a licence assessment.

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