Page 1985 - Week 06 - Thursday, 9 June 2016
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get back on; maybe they could not; but they might be lost to us. That is not to say there are not other worthy individuals to get on the council, but I do not see the need for this sort of procedure.
I think what it does is rob us of a valuable resource and I know we will come to regret this. I will have more to say on the council when we move to the amendments. My amendments are simply to omit four clauses that give me great concern. They give effect to this.
I think that there are some problems still with the command and control structure. I do not believe that this is adequately addressed by the legislation in front of us. One of the other bits of the explanatory statement gives me great concern. It is lauded in the document that we are going to give the RFS the power to respond in the urban area, but we already do. We always have. I have been on the top of Oxley Hill; I have been on Mount Taylor; I have been in all sorts of places. Yes, ACT Fire & Rescue turned up as well. But I suspect that this is seen as some sort of enabling clause. But at the same time it tends to say that the RFS cannot be trusted to fight a fire within the built-up area.
Referring again to the explanatory memorandum, this power only applies when a member of ACT Fire & Rescue is not present in line with the existing commissioner’s concept of operations for grass and bushfires. Again, we have got the commissioner’s concept driving the legislation. I think that is really dangerous because if the concept changes, does that mean we have to come back and change the legislation? It is an interesting thought.
In line with the existing commissioner’s concept of operation for grass and bushfires, the RFS would hand over control of fire response operations in relation to a fire within the built-up area as soon as it is safe and practical to do so following a member of ACT Fire & Rescue arriving on the scene. There is no change to the current practice that ACT Fire & Rescue have primacy of response for building fires, whether in the city or rural areas.
There is a little park in the middle of Oxley Hill. I went to this little park two or three days in a row back in the mid-90s. It is clearly in a built-up area. I think on the first day we were the first ones there. On the second day, RFS and Fire & Rescue turned up if my memory serves me right, but because it was actually quite wet they could not get their large vehicles in. We took our light units in and knocked the fire over. It kind of says that the RFS is incapable of putting out a small grass fire in a park in Oxley, which is patently untrue and false. This should not be allowed to be got away with.
There will always be tensions between the paid service and unpaid service. You know, the volunteers are always griping: we never get responded to; the firefighters think often they should be there first. But the guidelines state that it is the closest unit with the capability to go. If we send the closest unit, it might be an RFS unit but then a Fire & Rescue unit has to come and take control of the incident.
I question whether that is a good use of resources. Take the example of a high fire danger day when there are a number of small grassfires. If they are little and the RFS
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