Page 2989 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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The problem with the Emergencies Act and the draft version of the SBMP is that it does not provide the commissioner of the ESA and his fire COs with the authority to make quick decisions to both lay down fuel hazard reduction tasks and to intervene either to direct land managers to fix unmet targets or to fix the problems themselves. Let us take but three examples of where they do not have this authority. We can see that by their actions.
The SBMP did not clearly, for example, give the authorities in December 2005 the power or the confidence to direct the CEO of urban services to properly prepare firebreaks in, around and behind the Yarralumla brickworks. Yes, there were some nice 30-metre mown firebreaks west and south-west of the brickworks at Yarralumla. But what about the 200 metres of uninterrupted waist-high cured grass running along the northern boundary of the brickworks and through its eastern ruins, right up to the back fences of residences? I remind you that five of those residences were damaged or destroyed because of a failure by land managers to reduce the fuel hazard load in those areas. Why did the authorities not have the authority via the SBMP to direct the CEO of urban services to broaden the lousy five-metre wide firebreak along the back fence lines of those residences?
Mr Barr: That is the standard.
MR PRATT: That is your standard, minister.
Mr Barr: No. It is the Australian standard.
MR PRATT: Why does the SBMP not lay down that benchmark? Why was this area not targeted within the SBMP and its annexed BOPs? In 2005-06, why were the many thousands of metres of five-metre firebreaks along the urban services area of responsibility—that is the urban edge—not targeted in the SBMP and BOPs? I talk about many areas in Gordon, Bonython and Kambah, where you had a mere five-metre firebreak between the back fence and the Murrumbidgee River. Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table these photographs showing the five-metre fire benchmark.
Leave granted.
MR PRATT: I present the following photographs:
Yarralumla bushfire—photograph (1).
Roads around Canberra—maps and photographs (2).
Why were ACT parks closely adjacent to the urban edge around Tharwa, Hall and the approaches to Black Mountain and the approaches to Mount Taylor not listed for hazard reduction and firebreak buffer zone tasks in the 2005-06 season? It is because the SBMP and its attendant bushfire operational plans were grossly inadequate. I suggest they still are now.
Things are not much better this year. In this year’s budget, we see that the government has reduced spending in the ESA on fire preparedness and prevention by 25 per cent. Last year the government spent $46.07 per head of population. This year that figure has
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