Page 171 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2006
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and that is the case at the moment in the southern tablelands and across the whole of south-east Australia.
There are some limited stretches of urban landscape that this government has either failed to maintain regularly or, in some cases, failed to maintain at all. I recently spent two full days travelling around Canberra documenting areas where long grass potentially poses a fire risk and needs to be eradicated as a matter of urgency. I was inspired to do that in the wake of the Yarralumla fire, and more about that later. While the maintenance of long grass across Canberra and general preventative preparations appear to have improved somewhat on what has happened in previous years—in fact, I would say that the effort by the government and Urban Services is quite substantial compared to what we have seen in previous years—I am deeply concerned that a number of pockets of long grass close to suburbs with dangerous westerly bushfire approaches have not been eradicated with enough immediacy. This can be seen in three photographs that I now seek leave to table.
Leave granted.
MR PRATT: I table the following papers:
Long grass in Canberra region—photographs (3).
These photographs show the problem in very clear detail. The first of these photographs was taken in Kambah and it illustrates an access trail that is directly behind the homes on the western edge of Meredith Circuit. There is chest high grass on either side of the track, continuing down to the homes only metres away, and this is a westerly and a south-westerly approach. The firebreak gap on that track is only five metres.
The second photo that I have tabled was taken in Gordon. It is looking at the north-western approach to that suburb, behind houses in Staunton Place. The long grass can again be seen and no effort has been made to reduce the hazards in this vulnerable area. The gap along the service track between deep grass and back fences is at best 10 metres and in some cases only five metres.
The last photo I have tabled is taken from the Glenloch interchange, Belconnen. It is looking directly up to Black Mountain tower, and the grass on the roadside runs uninterrupted up to the top of that feature. In most of those areas the grass is at least waist high.
Emergency services units are working tirelessly during this hot, dry period but I fear they are not being supported by government with maximum preventive planning on government land. We have seen in recent years lessons about bushfire fuel load coming out of the Christmas 2001 fires and the 2003 bushfire disaster—lessons that should have seen this Labor government ensuring that there is not a repeat of such events.
Mr Speaker, the Yarralumla brickworks fire in late December was yet another wake-up call as to the ferocious nature of bush and grass fires. Residents affected by this fire had been complaining for years to the government, either directly or through their body corporate. From September 2003 until November 2005, barely a month before the fire took place, residents expressed their concern and demanded that action be taken to
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