Page 3873 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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And step three, the hard one, is we really are going to have to take the claims of global warming being a direct consequence of the combustion of carbon very, very seriously, and if we want to reduce natural hazards like fire we have to cut down our emissions and we’ve got to see that as one of the benefits of cutting down emissions. It’s a direct relationship. ‘Global warming’ sounds almost benign, but no, global warming is going to have some terrible, terrible consequences, and one of those terrible consequences are going to be mega-fires.
He concluded by saying:
… then the third step is we have to see mega-fires as being part of the global change story and that it’s a very good reason, one of the many very good reasons why we should be cutting our emissions. We talk about forests sequestering carbons, but one of the slogans which really undermines that in a way is ‘It’s the emissions stupid’; we can’t just think that growing forests is going to be our ‘get out of jail’ card. And in any case, in Australia we can grow forests and then they can turn around and catch on fire and we’re back to square one.
It is very important that we engage with our emergency services. According to the opposition there appears to have been a breakdown in communication between our volunteer fire brigades, and perhaps between our professional firefighters as well. It would seem to me that repairing that needs to be one of the first priorities of the government to make sure we are looking at a safe summer this year.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (4.03): I noticed that in this very important debate Mr Corbell danced around this very important issue by taking pot shots at Mr Mulcahy’s debating preparation. That is noted. What is noted is that that was a stunt and a diversion.
There are three major areas that we are concerned about in terms of the effectiveness of our emergency services. The first is the communications equipment area; the second is the Fairbairn headquarters relocation area; and the third is the organisation and command and control. My colleague Mr Mulcahy has dealt with the first two; I am going to focus more on the organisation and command and control. If you do not get the organisation and its people right—if you cannot look after your people—then the emergency management system will deteriorate; and we maintain that it has.
Firstly, let me acknowledge the government’s announcement of the many millions of dollars that it has spent on the public awareness program. That is fine, but it is going to be of little use if you have not got the organisation right, if you have not got the other foci right and if you have not got the folk right. That is the concern that the opposition has.
Mr Mulcahy talked about a couple of those issues, but I will go into them in far more detail. As Mr Mulcahy pointed out in his speech today, the emergency services are broadly respected for their day-to-day work, their responses to daily emergencies, but it is vital that our emergency services be geared to the strategic level, to be able to respond at that level. That is a concern that we have. It is the broader strategic level that the opposition is concerned about, not the individual services and their
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