Page 2549 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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As all members of this place would be familiar with, the village is well acquainted with the risk that bushfire poses, with the 2003 firestorm that swept through the territory all but destroying Uriarra Village. The decision was taken to not just rebuild the village but to expand it, and give other Canberrans the opportunity to experience what is a great rural lifestyle on the western edge of our city. After this expansion the decision now, to say, “Okay, there’s a bushfire risk out there but let’s allow other development directly opposite which may increase that risk,” is laughable.
The residents currently maintain a fire buffer around three sides of the village. You have Brindabella Road, and on the three surrounding sides of the village, the residents, out of their own pockets—not the ratepayers, not covered by the government—through their community title pay to maintain a fire abatement zone. But across the road from the village, the government now believes that it seems reasonable to increase the number of trees that are planted there which act as a fuel load during a fire, and are adjacent to an exit from the village, bringing severe and grave concern to all those that live out there.
As we approach the warmer months, the risk of fire is real and they are now concerned that if this development continues, in the event of another unfortunate incident such as occurred in 2003, the risk to life, the risk to property, is going to be exacerbated if this project, as currently proposed, continues.
Madam Speaker, having gone through the development application, I realise that part of the proposal is also to install a new electricity connection from the Uriarra solar development, running 4.3 kilometres through the hills, down to the Cotter pumping station. So there will be new powerlines installed. These are not the traditional powerlines that you see in the suburbs. Some of these power poles are going to be over 35 metres in height. That is about a four or five-storey building, in height, to give members the benefit of a visualisation. Obviously, the objection is not necessarily to the power poles themselves but to the types of wires that are going to be installed there.
The development application makes reference to a “Neptune 19/3.25 AAC” which, for the benefit of members, is a bare aluminium conductor. Power poles were quite an item of discussion by the Victorian royal commission into bushfires. One of the recommendations that they made to the Victorian government was about the progressive replacement of all 22 kilovolt distribution feeders with aerial bundle cables, underground cabling or other technology that delivers greatly reduced risk of bushfires.
The current proposal, as it stands, has powerlines being installed 4.3 kilometres through one of the highest risk areas of the territory for bushfires and a strategic area when it comes to managing the fire threat to the rest of the city. They are ignoring the advice of authorities such as the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission by installing uninsulated 22 kilovolt powerlines through a high-risk area.
Again, the litany of flaws in this project continues to be highlighted. We have a threat of fire opposite the village, we have a threat of fire as a result of the power lines being
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