Page 3395 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 18 September 2013
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An audit is to be done after the plan is published, and that is to be handed to the minister and the Bushfire Council. It has not. And this has all happened on Mr Corbell’s watch as minister. There is a problem here, because people of the ACT, after 2003, deserve to know with some degree of certainty that they have got the resources in place to be protected should another fire occur.
The minister, in dismissing most of this report, has said, “The Auditor-General has said we have got a robust framework.”A robust framework is not going to put the fire out. The permanent officers and the volunteers and the equipment provided will. And if you have not done the assessment, you have not provided the equipment and you have not got the volunteers to take those units into the field, then you are not meeting your responsibility.
In that, this minister has been negligent. He has been negligent by allowing the law to be broken. He has been negligent by not ensuring that the Bushfire Council received, according to the Auditor-General, the audit and the assessment which have to be provided. He has been negligent for years in hiding the reports that I have asked for. And I think we know why he has hidden the reports that have been requested: because it involves expenditure, expenditure this government has not been willing to put into making sure the RFS has what it needs to do its job.
No doubt, the minister will stand up and say, “The budget has gone up over the years.” Yes, it has. I am not aware of a budget of a government department that does not go up annually. Very few of them ever go backwards. “We’re building a few fire stations.” That is probably a good thing. But in the context of meeting the fire season, when will the minister tell us what is required, according to the determination?
Remember, for years the minister initially played dumb and said there were no such reports. Now he is saying they are financial, budget, commercial-in-confidence or not considered appropriate for public release. That is slightly different to what the department said. The department has realised it has now been caught out by the Auditor-General, and on page 24 of the response, where the auditor says it should be in the management plan, the Justice and Community Safety Directorate states:
Agreed. This will be included as part of the development of the Strategic Bushfire Management Plan Version 3 which has commenced.
That is admirable, and I am sure having highlighted the fact that you have not complied with the law, you will have it in the next one. But what about the existing one?
There is no reason for this list not to be made available today. The minister could have brought it down today. But what the motion calls for is that—and we will give the minister some time—by the last sitting day in November this year the minister table the list. Part (2) of my motion calls on the government to release and make explicit all resources needed to meet the objectives of the strategic bushfire management plan as per the Emergencies Act 2004 by the last sitting day of November 2013.
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