Page 2979 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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then minister for the environment for having the temerity to build fire trials. I will never do that while I am the spokesman for the environment in this place. Fire trails must be built and must be maintained. This needs to be done sensitively, of course, but there will never be any criticism from me of sensible approaches to hazard reduction. From time to time that will require a fire. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. You have small cold burns over areas to make sure that you reduce the hazard.
My concern, which is shared by Mr Pratt, is that there are not enough fire operational plans and that the plans that we have do not go to the heart of really reducing the hazards in some of our more vulnerable places. I have acknowledged that a lot of work has been done. I will acknowledge that the principle underlying putting all the land managers together in the one place is a good one. I said that during the budget debate and I say it here again. But if they are under-resourced and they are not given the appropriate riding instructions, it will be a wasted opportunity.
I think Mr Hargreaves is really a little bit sensitive here. He is saying that bushfire protection is the responsibility of all, not just government agencies, and I would agree with that. But government agencies have to lead by example and it has to be good example. I will give just one example of the atrocious management that I saw during the last bushfire season in relation to Percival Hill behind Nicholls. I was approached by a number of lessees who had basically taken over part of the government land beyond their fences. They maintained the land. They cut the grass and planted and grew lots of very green deciduous trees as a buffer to fires. The ground was clean and there was little or no possibility of ember strike. But the parks and conservation people came through and took out the trees. They raised what had been planted and left the land bare. However, across the road they left waist-high phalaris and Paterson’s curse, which all had been cured and had almost no moisture content. In the height of summer a barrier against fire had been taken away by the conservation agencies while hazard reduction had not been carried out some 10 feet away across the road. This is misplaced management. The government needs to lead by example. It needs to have a better, more consultative approach with the community and thereby encourage people to reduce their fire risk.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella) (4.50): Mr Speaker, I will be supporting Minister Hargreaves’s amendment to Mr Pratt’s motion. This government has provided a greater level of coordinated preparedness against bushfires in the ACT than has ever existed previously. Under the strategic bushfire management plan a comprehensive range of strategies has been developed to manage bushfire fuel levels across all tenures and to better prepare both the community and the emergency services. A researched, scientific approach to the principles of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery are embedded in the bushfire management framework.
Since the approval of the SBMP in early 2005 the ACT government has concentrated its attentions and efforts on translating these strategies into action to deliver clear outcomes on the ground that protect the community of the ACT. The implementation of the SBMP has proven to be a challenging job for all land managers and the Rural Fire Service because the SBMP seeks to develop and implement a robust scientific way of managing bushfire risk. The bushfire operational plans provide the process by which this provision has delivered more effective risk management outcomes.
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