Page 4108 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 13 December 2006
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For example, the strategic bushfire management plan did not, clearly, give the authorities the power or the confidence in December 2005 to direct the CEO of urban services to properly prepare fire breaks in and around, particularly behind, the Yarralumla brickworks. Yes, adequate 30-metre mown fire breaks existed west and south-west of the brickworks, but nothing was done about the 200 metres of uninterrupted waist high, cured grass running along the brickworks’ northern boundary and through its eastern ruins right up to the back fences of residences.
Why did the authorities not have the authority, via the SBMP, to direct the CEO of urban services to broaden the vastly inadequate five-metre fire break along the residences’ back fence line? Mr Speaker, I am outlining here an example of the problem that is not catered for or met with the current bushfire management plan. In fact, looking at that Yarralumla fire in 2005, I note that three properties were damaged and two destroyed as a consequence of a failure to manage the bushfire fuel problem in and around the brickworks. Why was this area not targeted within the bushfire management plan and an annexed bushfire operational plan?
In 2005-06, looking now at another concern that was expressed then by residents and by volunteers, why were not the many 1,000 metres of vastly inadequate five-metre wide fire breaks along urban services’ urban edge not targeted in the bushfire management plan and the bushfire operational plans? Why were ACT parks adjacent to the urban edge—for example, around Tharwa and Hall, and the approaches to Black Mountain and Mount Taylor—not listed in the bushfire season for 2005-06 for hazard reduction and the development of bushfire buffer zones?
The answer is that the current legislation fails to lock in these issues. It fails to require the strategic bushfire plan, firstly, to lay down stronger powers and obligations around fuel hazard reduction as a general rule across the territory, including the power for the commissioner of the Emergency Services Agency and his delegates, the chief officer of the RFS and the chief officer of the fire brigade, to inspect and risk analyse all areas under their protection from the suburban edge through the bushfire abatement zone to the borders.
Mr Speaker, as a consequence of the previous point, the bushfire management plan as it is currently drawn up does not lay down obligatory fuel reduction targets and the target dates, including preseason cold burns and intraseason tasks—for example, mowing or grazing—and it does not compel land managers to achieve those tasks. The bushfire management plan is a quite useful document. We have said that many times in this place. It is a useful document. It certainly is a lot better than what any government had in the ACT before 2003; there is no doubt about that.
It is a useful document. It is a guiding document. It certainly is a document that opens up debate and encourages people in the ACT—land managers, owners and authorities—to undertake preventive tasks. But it is more of a damn discussion document than an action plan that lays down clear benchmarks for people to achieve tasks on time before a bushfire season. That is the opposition’s concern and that is why the opposition wants to see the bushfire management plan tightened up.
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