Page 293 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007
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emergency services in Adelaide. I met with the commissioner again to deal with two separate agenda items. I met with the commissioner again to deal with another agenda item. I met with the commissioner to discuss the ESA governance arrangements. Finally, I met with the commissioner to deal with the announcement of the ESA charter and governance arrangements.
As members would see, these were not just little sit-down chats; they were substantive meetings. Again, I look forward to Mr Pratt retracting all of the suggestions he has made that I do not meet with the commissioner and that the commissioner is unable to meet with me on a regular basis.
Emergencies Amendment Bill 2006 (No 2)
Debate resumed from 13 December 2006, on motion by Mr Pratt:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (3.38): Mr Speaker, the government will be opposing Mr Pratt’s amendments to the Emergencies Act. Mr Pratt presented the Emergencies Amendment Bill (2006) (No 2) to the Assembly on 13 December last year. Mr Pratt wants the government to change the act and add new sections that relate to the content of the strategic bushfire management plan, hazard reduction tasks, bushfire breaks and bushfire operational plans, as well as guidelines for vulnerable communities.
Mr Pratt, in short, wants the Assembly to amend the act in a way that will create an enormous glut of paperwork and requirements on land owners and managers. I will address each of Mr Pratt’s proposed amendments in turn to show not only that they are unnecessary but also that they would lead to bushfire management being handled in a paper war rather than in a streamlined and proactive manner.
Mr Pratt proposes a new section for the act, section 71A, entitled “Hazard reduction tasks”. Within this section it is proposed that the commissioner must each year inspect rural areas and for each area assess the level of fire fuel, analyse the risk of bushfires, and identify all requirements for the prevention of, and preparedness for, bushfires to be undertaken by various agencies, land owners and managers.
It is the government’s view that this section is not required and that, if Mr Pratt had read the Emergencies Act properly, he would have seen that all the things he proposes are already covered by the act. But, for Mr Pratt’s benefit and for members’ information, I will let members know how to find that. Under sections 29 (3) and 30 (3) of the act the chief officer of the fire brigade and the chief officer of the rural fire service both have as part of their functions statutory responsibilities to undertake operational planning for preparedness and response to fires. It would seem to me that Mr Pratt thinks that the commissioner should be doing this job as well as the two officers—an extraordinary level of duplication.
The strategic bushfire management plan currently requires risk assessment and the development of strategies for prevention and preparedness. That already exists, again,
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