Page 1185 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 April 2019
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Climate change in the ACT region means longer, hotter bushfire seasons, as we have heard. Understanding and managing the risks bushfires present to our bush capital is important. Canberra as a planned city is well designed to deal with climate change risks including flooding and bushfire. Maps are now available for the public to view on ACTmapi that show flood-prone areas and bushfire-prone areas across the ACT. We carry out bushfire risk assessments for new residential areas and require certain building standards for dwellings to be met.
We continue to work with the ACT Emergency Services Agency on wider bushfire and flooding matters. Consultation is now underway on the regional bushfire management plan, or the RFMP, as part of the strategic bushfire management plan prepared by the ESA. The RFMP uses modelling to simulate over 6,000 wildfires across the ACT and the impact on life and property and the environment. This approach enables fuel reduction burning to be targeted to priority areas taking into account a narrower burning window as a consequence of a changing climate. In addition, the government has made significant investments in bushfire preparedness, including new technologies. The work that the government is undertaking now is preparing the ACT for more extreme weather events as a result of climate change.
The ACT government is also progressing work in the areas of planning, design and building as they play a key role in delivering sustainable and livable developments in a changing climate. I invite members to reflect on my contribution and that of Mr Ramsay during the debate on last private member’s day that touched upon these matters.
In concluding, I also want to congratulate the federal Labor opposition for their comprehensive package of actions that will help Australia transition to a low carbon economy, while growing jobs and helping those most impacted by unabated global warming. I am hopeful that I will soon have a federal ministerial colleague who accepts that climate change is real and will work cooperatively with our government to help tackle the challenges that climate change will bring.
MS LEE (Kurrajong) (3.37): I thank Ms Le Couteur for bringing this matter on for debate today. The past few weeks and months have certainly demonstrated to Canberrans, and indeed most of eastern Australia, the ability of the weather to range from hot to cold to windy to wet at a moment’s notice. The change to cold on the weekend has triggered a wave of discussion on radio about when in Canberra it is appropriate to put away your fans and put on your electric blanket. Of course, Anzac Day is the day Canberra experiences its first frost. And if a frost does not come on that day, as it often does not, then you are reminded that you need to be ready because it could.
It was always a Sydney joke that in Melbourne you were able to get four seasons on any one day without warning, and that jibe has continued for over a century and is probably as relevant today as it was when first stated. In the history of the planet, climate has always been changing and we, in our very short time on earth in geological terms, need to be aware of what we experience and what we contribute to weather patterns and put that in context.
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