Page 3640 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 28 October 2014
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I think the line which simply says that the commissioner may direct the chief officer to undertake response without the caveat of not how to undertake that response is a very dangerous thing we do. If we pass this particular clause today I think we set back the cause of emergency management in the ACT for a long time and I suspect that we will be back to amend it again when something goes wrong.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.11): The Greens will be supporting this bill today. I agree that there is a need to have clear and coordinated governance policies and practices in place in order to ensure that emergency services are managed as efficiently and effectively as possible.
As we have discussed and debated many times in this place, there are many different arms of government responsible for various aspects of emergencies, and in particular fire management and coordination has been a key aspect of interest to the Assembly.
Fire prevention and management is a complex area. In the ACT we have a multitude of agencies and organisations responsible for various areas and tasks both within and outside the Emergency Services Agency, including ACT Fire & Rescue, the parks and conservation service, ACTPLA, the Environment and Planning Directorate, the ACT Rural Fire Service, the volunteer fire brigade and so on. And this is on top of our other emergency services—the Ambulance Service and the State Emergency Service.
Over the past 10 years, since the 2003 bushfires, the ACT has matured significantly when it comes to fire planning and management. The subsequent creation of the ACT Bushfire Council and the strategic bushfire management plans, in my view, have been extremely helpful both for the creation of opportunities for frank, open and productive discussion and relationship building and for the very important resulting plans.
We now have our third strategic bushfire management plan for the territory, and it has been produced each time through considerable discussion and consultation between a good representation of stakeholders. I believe that the plan has struck a fairly good and responsible balance between addressing the need to ensure we are minimising fire risks to people, property and the environment and working to protect as much of our biodiversity as possible. Of importance, over the past decade or so, bushfire prevention or reduction activities such as mowing, slashing and grazing have been added to the repertoire, reducing both the risks of built-up fuels in wooded areas and the impacts of repeated fuel reduction burns on our delicate ecology.
Madam Assistant Speaker, this may seem like a long introduction but it is key to the bill that is before us today. I understand that this bill is largely a by-product of the discussions around the development of the third strategic bushfire management plan, as well as putting into place some of the recommendations from the Auditor-General’s 2013 report on bushfire preparedness.
Key amendments in the bill include better alignment of various plans such as bushfire operational plans, land management plans and land management agreements with the strategic bushfire management plan—although I will come back to this, as it has the potential to be a double-edged sword.
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