Page 3665 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 26 August 2008
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such incredible division amongst the emergency services that it appeared to me that they were actually in competition with each other. Things have moved along, and we should always acknowledge that.
We have here a situation where the people who fight fires are some of the people who put themselves at that interface between humans and nature, between uncontrollable natural forces and a bureaucratic process which makes reaction very hard. In the area that I come from, which is an area in Victoria that you will never have heard of, the issues between the voluntary fire services and the department, as it is called—it has changed its name several times; we will just call it the department—are long lived and it seems to me that there will never be a rapprochement between them. The locals believe that they know how to fight a fire and put it out, and the department believe that they know how to fight a fire and put it out. The processes are very different. The local people tend to respond—to get up and walk out there to the fire. Sometimes that is a very long walk. Namadgi is very well provided for by comparison with a lot of far east Gippsland, which is the area that I am talking about.
I just want to say that we cannot expect to solve these problems. We cannot ever be armed against the kind of fire that happened in January 2003. We must know that. We cannot spend the next four or five years in blame, as I have seen happening in this place in relation to those fires.
It is to be understood that mistakes were made. They will, no doubt, be made next time—no matter how well prepared the fire services are, no matter how many millions of dollars have been sunk into it. There are issues around culture that are not solved. There are issues around the fact that most of Canberra is bush. There are issues around the fact that we do not have control over the surrounding forests, which are governed by New South Wales. There are always going to be problems.
It would concern me if this always remained a political issue that could be brought up to blame whatever the government of the day is. Nonetheless, it seems to me that, with our very discrete area, it should be possible for us to work out various things. In our forest, Namadgi, we are really talking about one particular vegetation type; we are basically talking about dry sclerophyll. It is not like, for instance, Victoria or east Gippsland, which have a number of different vegetation types. It should be possible to work out a fire management plan that will include some controlled burning and will include a number of other methods of preventing bushfire and acting very quickly on it.
As I said, for me, coming from the Tubbut area, the fact that that fire was not put out on the first night still stuns me. I am afraid that I cannot help that; that is where I come from. If that fire had happened in Tubbut, people would have been out there and they would have stayed there all night. That is a cultural difference to me. It is also an issue about who controls a fire.
There are still basic questions to be asked. I felt from the very beginning that this inquiry was going to be a political inquiry. I was concerned about it. I had input into the terms of reference; Mr Seselja was the chair of the committee at that time. I did not want to see another blame game going on—another opportunity to blame the government, particularly the Chief Minister. I do not see how that helps anyone.
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