Page 305 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007
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properly and on time. That is what we are concerned about and that is what we want to see fixed. Although I have talked to the Greens, I am disappointed that they have not quite seen that point.
Mr Speaker, the minister says that the SBMP has been a bit late getting locked in as a confirmed document because it has been under review. Well, for God’s sake, the damn thing has been under review for three years and 11 months and three bushfire seasons! So three bushfire seasons after McLeod and other experts identified that we needed to have these sorts of plans in place, we still have documents which are only in draft form. And that is our concern. We do not believe that a draft document, regardless of what it might say in print, gives the commissioner and his delegates, their brigade and unit captains, land managers and landowners, the police and any other responsible authority who might have an appropriate role to play in emergency management, the clear-cut authority to get these things done.
I would remind you, Mr Speaker—and I pointed this out in my speech before Christmas—that the act states that the commissioner and his delegates may do this and they may do that. The commissioner may identify and designate a bushfire abatement zone. The commissioner may carry out fuel hazard reduction tasks here, here and here. However, it does not stipulate where those sorts of things should be carried out. We do not say that the act is useless. The act is certainly something much better than we had had before. If I remember correctly, Mr Bill Wood brought the emergencies legislation into the Assembly between March and May 2004. It was certainly a better instrument for emergency management than what we had seen in this place before then. But, for reasons that I can never fathom, the act was written in such a way as to not tie these things down in a concrete fashion.
We want to see the act say that the commissioner will do this; his delegates will do this; land managers will, when advised by the commissioner, carry out fuel hazard reduction tasks by such and such a time; and the chief officer of the rural fire service will have the power to task his brigade captains to carry out risk analysis tasks in their areas of responsibility. We want the strategic bushfire management plan, empowered by the act, to be an action plan—an action plan which uses the word “will” rather than “may” or “gee, it may be a good idea if”. That is our concern with the existing act and the existing strategic bushfire management plan. I did not know the strategic bushfire management plan had suddenly been approved as a final document. Well, that is at least a head start but the final document is going to have holes right through it.
Mr Speaker, the minister says that under 74A my proposal for bushfire breaks is “simplistic” and that this was the only instrument that we wanted to have put in place. He went on to say that he prefers a more comprehensive risk analysis plan. Well, we entirely agree with that. We did not say bushfire breaks prepared along the Canberran urban edge and around vulnerable settlements or vulnerable locations—for example, identifying Mount Stromlo as a vulnerable remote location—were the be-all and end-all of bushfire preparation. The opposition does not believe in the building of rigid moats around the urban edge and vulnerable locations. We have never said that. So I think it is a bit disingenuous of the minister to mislead by saying that our preventative planning hangs on that view.
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