Page 2457 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 June 2005
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It is essential that your family prepares and practises an escape plan. You should draw up a floor plan of your house, plan two ways out of each room and select an indicated meeting place outside the home, like around the letterbox. Also teach your family to check closed doors for fire before opening, using the back of your hand; to crawl low, because smoke and heat will build from the ceiling down; and to close doors behind them as they exit—this will slow the spread of fire and smoke. Practise your escape plan using these techniques.
We have seen our counterparts over the border recently announce the compulsory installation of smoke alarms in all homes, as outlined by Ms MacDonald. Currently the ACT Fire Brigade is preparing a brief for me on a number of increased fire safety options, including making smoke alarms mandatory in ACT households. This government will take the advice of experts in the fire brigade before making any decisions on whether or not to make smoke alarms compulsory and will also have a look at what New South Wales is doing, how they are doing it, and how other jurisdictions manage this issue.
There are many issues that need to be looked at and sorted through before making a decision on compulsory smoke alarms, not least of which is how to enforce retrofitting of alarms in properties. New South Wales, I believe, is planning to police it through the insurance system. It is open to insurance companies now to give a discount for, or require people to have, smoke alarms when giving insurance policies on home and contents, in the same way as we see them giving discounts if we have window locks and deadlocks. That raises the question as to whether we need to legislate at all.
I am also concerned at some of the issues that surface when we talk about any future compulsory retrofitting of alarms. For example, if a landlord is compelled to fit a smoke alarm in any future regime I think there is an inherent unfairness if the insurance is voided if the tenant does not check the batteries and the house burns down. These are the sorts of issues that need to be discussed and debated and on which we need advice before we legislate a change that will affect so many Canberrans. While there is no question as to the value of smoke alarms, there are still questions as to the effectiveness of any legislation, whether we in fact need it and how we would enforce it.
I again thank Ms MacDonald for her motion today, and I do assure her and all my colleagues that the government takes fire safety very seriously. However, decisions such as this cannot be taken lightly, and we will be looking at all associated issues before legislating any changes to the current regime.
I notice that Mr Pratt has circulated an amendment, requesting that the government report back to the Assembly in 90 days. I indicate that the government will not be supporting this amendment. Personally, I have indicated a range of initiatives this government is taking that indicate how seriously we take the issue. I give an undertaking in this place right now that we take the issue seriously. The only movement on the Australia-wide front at the moment is with New South Wales, and I do not propose to put a time limit of 90 days on the evaluation of the efficacy of their particular change in regime. It is an arbitrary 90 days to pull out of the air. I do not see any reason for it.
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