NATIVE VEGETATION (ROAD VERGES) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (10:50): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Native Vegetation Act 1991. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (10:51): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

What a day to introduce a bill to amend the Native Vegetation Act! We have fire bans right across the state, and we have extreme and severe fire weather. If you drive through our countryside, you will see massive overgrowth of roadside vegetation, and you will see many areas where homeowners and property owners have not done their proper fire preparation. It will just be through good luck but, more importantly, the hard work of CFS volunteers that we do not have a disaster today. My family owns a property between Kangarilla and Meadows and, even as early as this morning, I was in this place and got a CFS app alert that there was a grass fire at Kangarilla, so you can imagine what my heart rate did.

This piece of legislation I am introducing today is one that should be considered very strongly and very seriously by this parliament. I know it is going to be controversial and I know that there may be some amendments put up. I am happy to consider those, but this piece of legislation is all about having some common sense about allowing property owners to clear the road verges around their properties to help reduce the fire risk.

We know that many people have died on our roads trying to get out of properties along country roads and escape bushfires. Some of those decisions may have been unfortunate decisions made at the wrong time but, had there been preparation and allowance for people to undertake bushfire preparation along road verges without the fear of bureaucracy and without the fear of the complications of having to fill out forms and wait, wait, wait until halfway through summer, some of these tragedies might have been avoided.

I certainly know that, through our Adelaide Hills, we need to do something about clearing the vegetation along our roadsides, allowing property owners to do what they want to do. I trust property owners in South Australia to do the right thing. They are not going to get out there and napalm the road verges. They are not going to go out there and undertake some desertification program along the verges.

They value remnant native vegetation, but they recognise that there is a massive ingrowth and overgrowth of exotic vegetation on our road verges. On top of that are the complications of the Native Vegetation Act that put very unclear restrictions on what property owners can do—whether they can remove branches so they can get slashers in there, whether they can spray along the road verges. What you can do and what you cannot do is a bureaucratic not nonsense but nightmare for property owners.

It is so important that we make this clear for property owners. My bill makes this very, very clear. It is not a slash-and-burn approach, it is not just open slather: it is about responsible and reasonable—and that is in the bill—steps to clear the road verges, to reduce fuel loads and, in certain circumstances, to improve road safety. You can often see phalaris 1½ metres high growing on the sides of roads. You come up to the intersections and you cannot see because of the phalaris. It is not only a road safety issue but also a fire danger issue.

Just yesterday, we saw fires at Blewitt Springs and then at Happy Valley, both of those fires were certainly not sparked by passing trains but lit by people who have some absolutely unfathomable thinking going on in their heads. Where did they do it? They did it on the road verge. Why? It is easy to set fires on road verges because of the overgrowth of the vegetation there. If property owners are able to do what they want to do, that is, take reasonable steps to reduce the fuel load to improve their safety, to improve bushfire safety, to improve road safety, then let them go ahead and do it.

It is part of the CFS philosophy to prepare, act and survive. That is what this is all about. It is about getting out there, doing the job and making sure that you are able to put your bushfire prevention plans in place early. In South Australia the councils take some responsibility for this. I will read from the road reserves policy of one large hills council. Council policy 9.11—that is a bit of a serendipitous number, is it not—states:

Due to current resources and budgetary constraints it is current Council practice not to slash the roadsides of unsealed roads. Also the roadsides of many of the unsealed roads are inaccessible to slashers due to steep embankments and rocks and debris which damage equipment.

So, they do not do it. Who does do it? A while ago we saw amendments to the Fire and Emergency Services Act to bring in bushfire management committees and bushfire management areas. We saw the State Bushfire Coordination Committee being established, but there is still a lot of confusion out there. We still have bushfire management areas with their plans unreleased. If you go onto the CFS website you will see lists of the bushfire management areas. I do not know whether it has changed recently, but I went in there to have a look at these and there were none available. So, if that has changed, great, but it is too late for this summer, it is too late for many South Australians to go about and do what they wanted to do, that is, to protect their properties.

The bushfire management area plans are to be drawn up by these various committees. One of the key functions of these committees, as listed on the CFS website, is to identify who is responsible for implementing risk treatments. Who is going to clean up the roadsides? Who is going to clean up the road verges? Who is going to reduce the fuel load? We know that the state government is only interested in between white post and white post, and that is not just this government, it has been previous governments.

We know that local councils are unable to either provide the equipment or the finances to undertake the thousands of kilometres of road verge tidying up that needs to be done. So, let the property owners do it. Let them do it to a reasonable extent. Let them do it in a fashion where they can feel safe about it without having to go through a myriad of legislative hurdles and through a nightmare of filling out forms and waiting and waiting. Let us not wait anymore. Let us make sure that South Australians can do what they want to do, that is, survive bushfires by reducing the risk by reducing the fuel load.

My bill is pretty straightforward. It is amending section 27—Clearance of native vegetation, of the Native Vegetation Act. Section 27(1)(c) states:

native vegetation may be cleared without any other restriction under this Act if the clearance occurs on a road verge and is reasonably required—

(i) for road safety purposes; or

(ii) to reduce the fuel load on the road verge.

It is that second one, reducing the fuel load on the road verge, that we are really concerned about today. I ask the government to look at this very carefully. I know there are many groups out there who are very concerned about native vegetation, as am I and as are my colleagues in the Liberal Party.

I had one comment from one council environmental officer, who was very cautious about this approach. It was a precautionary principle approach he was using, but after consultation, after having a chat with him, he did admit that one fire did go through one of their areas along the roads and into some native scrub and he did admit that after that the native vegetation came back with a lot more vigour and a lot more flourish. So, we know that native vegetation does respond to fire, but we do not want it around built-up areas, we do not want it where people and their properties are going to be at risk.

Allowing people to reduce the fire risk is something that I am trying to achieve with this bill. I hope the government looks at it. I hope the people who are concerned about the bill contact me, contact their local members, contact the government, to propose sensible amendments to legislation that will allow people to do what they want to do. I trust South Australian property owners to do what is the right thing. We have seen in the past that they have been able to manage it. We have introduced all of this legislation, which I do not think has improved things, so let us make it right. Let us make it better. Let us make it safe.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Goldsworthy.