Page 1584 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2016
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I turn to ensuring an all-hazards approach to emergency planning and response. This amendment ensures that ACT fire agencies can better protect our city from the threat posed by fire whether the threat is fire from the fire itself or the consequences of it. Currently these fire agencies can only use those powers in response to the actual fire itself.
The bill also provides for consistent immunities for all members of the emergency services, including the SES and the Ambulance Service, under all ACT law. Emergency service members, when acting to protect and preserve life, property and the environment, may commit an offence under other ACT law. This could include, for example, felling a protected tree or damaging a protected heritage building. For this reason, relevant law contains an exemption for actions undertaken by certain members of an emergency service in an emergency.
I turn to the issue of simplifying responsibility for fire control. The responsibility for fire control in the bushfire abatement zone was one of the matters raised in the review. The review proposed that a single service be given specific responsibility for fire control and planning in the bushfire abatement zone, noting that this will not alter the existing response arrangements, which are that the first response to all grass fires and bushfires in the ACT will be by the nearest available, most appropriate resource, irrespective of jurisdiction or service. These amendments clarify and only relate to initial command and control arrangements.
I turn to clarifying responsibility for operational planning. The act currently assigns responsibility for advice on fire-related planning and development issues to either the Chief Officer of the RFS or the Chief Officer of ACT Fire & Rescue on a geographic basis. This approach created the risk that, by having two separate entities providing formal advice depending on where the building is located, any advice provided by the two chief officers may be inconsistent. While the obligation on each chief officer to consult with their counterpart in relation to the bushfire abatement zone and the rural area reduced this risk, it did not eliminate it.
It is of vital importance from a public safety perspective that there is a coordinated and consistent approach to emergency planning and advice. To achieve this, and to ensure that the ACT community receives the highest quality and consistent advice, this bill amends the functions of ACT Fire & Rescue and the Rural Fire Service in relation to operational planning for fire so that the commissioner is given explicit responsibility for planning and development advice functions.
The preparation of planning and development advice will continue to be undertaken by members of ACT Fire & Rescue and the Rural Fire Service with the applicable skills, qualifications and expertise. The commissioner would act upon this advice and the recommendation from the respective chief officer in providing a planning and development approval.
I turn to the power of the Chief Officer of the ACT Ambulance Service to establish, amend, suspend or withdraw an ambulance officer’s scope of practice. An officer’s scope of practice may be amended or suspended where a member of the Ambulance
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