Page 1989 - Week 06 - Thursday, 9 June 2016
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The amendment ensures that the Rural Fire Service has the ability to respond to fire within the built-up area where ACT Fire & Rescue is not available or where a member of ACT Fire & Rescue is not present to direct the Rural Fire Service.
The bill makes some changes to the governance arrangements for the ACT Bushfire Council. They seem like sensible changes to me, but when Mr Smyth moves his amendments later I will make my specific points there.
The bill gives the Chief Officer of the Rural Fire Service the power to issue an improvement notice, occupancy notice or closure notice for premises within the rural area, which is where the chief officer is responsible for fire preparedness and fire response. This amendment is made, of course, to ensure that the chief officer has appropriate powers to address a risk to public safety or to the safety of people who are or are likely to be at the premises.
The bill provides an exception to the offence of interfering with a fire appliance as long as they have permission of the relevant authority. This allows, for example, maintenance to be conducted on these devices.
The bill makes a number of amendments to support the ESA’s ability to adopt an all-hazards approach to emergency management. This approach involves arrangements for managing the large range of possible effects of risks and emergencies, including warning, evacuation, medical services and community recovery. The bill confers several additional powers on the Chief Officer of Fire & Rescue and the Chief Officer of the RFS for the purposes of extinguishing or preventing the spread of fires and to preserve life, property or the environment. These powers may be delegated and exercised without the need to seek authorisation when this is not practicable.
The explanatory statement cites a useful, practical example where, during the September 2011 Mitchell chemical explosion and fire, ACT Fire & Rescue members faced some limitations in exercising powers to prevent the spread of chemicals, including via a smoke boom, because this did not specifically relate to extinguishing or preventing the spread of a fire, the words that the act used.
The bill makes sensible amendments so that members of ACT Fire & Rescue or the RFS are able to exercise the powers available to them under those sections—
At 6 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.
MR RATTENBURY: As I was saying, the bill makes sensible amendments so that members of ACT Fire & Rescue or the Rural Fire Service are able to exercise the powers available to them under those sections to protect life or property where the threat to life or property arises as a consequence of a fire rather than just from the fire itself.
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