Page 117 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 12 February 2020
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Regarding emergency and evacuation procedures, in Gungahlin there are very strong community concerns about the ability of certain areas to evacuate. Given the way that suburbs have been developed, many with just one or two exit options, there is a fear that if evacuation were ever needed in our far north it would be difficult. Lastly, I will touch on the ACT Fire & Rescue enterprise agreement issues. I believe there have been over 1,000 days without an enterprise agreement for our career, urban firefighters in the Fire & Rescue. At a time of such need, it is rather unfortunate that this matter has not been resolved and inroads appear to not have been made in repairing the relationship between the ESA and the union.
The issues I have raised today are just some of the areas that will need to be reviewed in good time. I understand that an internal government review will be undertaken at the close of the bushfire season, as I am sure is standard practice. In the same vein, I suspect the JACS committee may well want to follow on with a public process for anyone in the community wanting to make public input. Once further details have been finalised that will also, no doubt, be announced in due course.
The process of reviewing and highlighting areas in need of improvement and learning from them does not in any way take away from the many professionals doing their jobs very well this bushfire season. It does not take away from the things that have been done so well. We are certainly forever grateful for the tireless work that our career and volunteer firefighters and emergency services workers have done for us, putting on their uniforms and walking or driving towards danger on our behalf. However, nothing is perfect, and we can genuinely use this opportunity to become better at the work we do in relation to the preparedness for bushfire seasons and the best use of resources as we go into future bushfire seasons. We all hope for an even better management of risk and resources as we advance as a city and a community.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Minister for Planning and Land Management, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister assisting the Chief Minister on Advanced Technology and Space Industries) (10.15): I thank Mrs Jones for this motion today. Let me begin in the same way that I commenced yesterday—by thanking and acknowledging the hardworking men and women, paid staff and volunteers, of the Emergency Services Agency and the services that make up the ESA, ACT Policing, the parks and conservation service and staff across ACT government.
We have heard praise from all sides of the chamber indicating a broad endorsement of how successfully they worked to keep us safe over this long, dry and challenging summer. Over the past few days I have heard remarks from some saying we were lucky, and remarks also about favourable wind conditions. I do not agree. It was not luck. This was about being well prepared and well resourced so that our ESA and parks personnel were able to take advantage of those conditions. They were able to focus on the immediate responses to the fires while also thinking about the longer term plans to tackle and contain them. What we saw was some of the best in Australia—proud Canberrans standing up and working to protect our territory in unprecedented conditions.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video