Page 4116 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 16 Sept 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
The government believes that attempting to enshrine the index rating and warning messages in legislation is counterproductive for other reasons as well. These are operational reasons. Despite the very best efforts and intentions of all participants in the emergency debate, as even the events of recent weeks have shown, collective attitudes to these matters change over time, and sometimes they change rapidly. We are seeing this already in Western Australia. In the current context, when changes are required of this type to preparedness and response messaging, jurisdictions find it difficult to act if they are tied in the statutory way that Mr Smyth proposes. We need to make sure there is flexibility as the knowledge and the advice changes from our fire management and fire weather experts.
For all these reasons, I believe it is not in the best interests of the Canberra community to pass Mr Smyth’s bill. If this Assembly does pass this bill, it will mean that the ACT will be an island amongst the rest of Australia, inconsistent with the national warning framework that every other state and territory has agreed to and inconsistent with nationally agreed frameworks for scaled advice and warnings to the community.
These are the important issues at play in this debate. The government has given serious consideration to Mr Smyth’s bill, but if the Assembly was to agree to it today the outcome would be confusion, and dangerous confusion at that. Canberra citizens are entitled to effective warning systems. The nationally agreed framework delivers us that approach. We should stand with our colleagues in other jurisdictions. We should adopt a common warning system that everyone understands and which is utilised across all the states and territories. We should not go down this stand-alone path that Mr Smyth proposes. I urge the Assembly to reject the bill.
MS BURCH (Brindabella) (6.13): I would like to reiterate Mr Corbell’s position on Mr Smyth’s amendment to the Emergency Act 2004 via his Emergencies (Bushfire Warnings) Amendment Bill 2009. I believe that Mr Smyth, in bringing forward this bill in the Assembly, has the Canberra community’s best interests in mind. However, it appears that Mr Smyth has not been aware of what has been going on at a national level on the matter of bushfire warnings and community advice.
I have noted that, since Mr Smyth presented the Emergencies (Bushfire Warnings) Amendment Bill 2009 in the Assembly on 26 August 2009, announcements have been made across the country that all states and territories have agreed to a nationally consistent approach to bushfire scaled advice and warnings to the community. I note that Minister Corbell announced yesterday that the ACT will be adopting this nationally consistent approach. I also note that New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia have also announced that they will be adopting this approach.
Following the devastating Victorian bushfires that we saw earlier this year, it is important that there is a consistent approach to advice and warnings to the community. I note that the interim findings from the Victorian bushfires royal commissioner recommended, via recommendation 4.1, that warnings are to be founded on the principles of maximising the potential to save human lives; that they embody the principles encapsulated in recommendation 8.5 of the COAG report National inquiry on bushfire mitigation and management of 2004; that they embody the principles
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .