Native Vegetation (Road Verges) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 14 May 2015.)

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (11:20): I rise to speak briefly on the Native Vegetation (Road Verges) Amendment Bill 2015. As the member for Davenport, bushfire prevention is a top priority, not just for my electorate but for the whole of South Australia. It is important to remember that, according to the CFS, more than 35 suburbs on Adelaide's fringes are in bushfire-prone areas, including the majority of suburbs in my electorate, along with over 75 towns in the Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island areas.

As legislators, we must do all we possibly can to reduce the ever present danger posed to this state by bushfires. With winter well and truly upon us, it is all too easy to forget the catastrophic bushfire danger this state faces each and every fire season. It was only a mere six months ago that we witnessed the devastation of the Sampson Flat fire, the worst fire to hit the Adelaide Hills since the Ash Wednesday bushfires.

The bill introduced by the member for Morphett proposes a sensible solution to the problem of overgrown vegetation on road verges. The first danger to be prevented by the bill is the serious bushfire danger posed by overgrown vegetation on road verges to those who are fleeing bushfires. Overgrown vegetation on road verges can catch alight on both sides of a road and trap those who are trying to flee a bushfire. If the fuel load on road verges was reduced then some of our country roads would not be in the tinderbox situation they are currently on extreme fire days.

By allowing South Australians to reduce the fuel load on road verges it does not just make it safer for residents to flee areas in the path of an oncoming bushfire, it also makes it safer for our emergency services personnel, who are putting their lives on the line to protect us. I have always believed that, as a parliament, we should protect those who protect us.

We are bombarded by advertisements each summer urging residents to have a bushfire survival plan and to clean up around their properties to reduce the risk of a bushfire destroying their home. As a parliament, we should be allowing residents to clear overgrown vegetation on road verges in their own area without filling out a mountain of paperwork. If the bill passes, roads in bushfire-prone areas will be safer to travel on in the event of a bushfire.

There is another danger posed by overgrown road verges which is addressed by the bill. The second danger is the risk to road safety posed by overgrown vegetation on road verges. At the moment, people who are coming onto a road cannot see oncoming traffic safely because of the overgrown vegetation. Overgrown grass is often higher than one and a half metres, and this is all too evident in too many of our peri-urban areas. South Australians should have a legal right, as proposed in this bill, to cut back, within reason, vegetation on road verges that hinders their vision of approaching traffic without filling in form after form seeking approval to do so.

At the moment, many councils are not trimming back road verges, especially on unsealed roads. In the member for Morphett's speech on the bill, he quoted the District Council of Mount Barker's current policy, which can be found on their website, which states:

Due to current resources and budgetary constraints it is current Council practice not to slash the roadsides of unsealed roads.

I can confirm that Mount Barker is not the only council with such a policy. I am attaching no blame to councils by stating this, but it is clear that many councils, especially in regional areas, are unable to keep up with the amount of maintenance that road verges require to be safe during fire season. It makes sense to allow people to clear road verges of excess vegetation so as not to pose a bushfire or road safety danger to the public, as proposed in this very bill.

A further benefit of the bill is that not only will local residents be permitted to clear road verges but so will the CFS, without filling out the onerous paperwork that is required today. CFS members and volunteers are sick to death of filling in form after form after form on many trivial matters.

Senior officers of the CFS have said that some of the best training provided to volunteers was going out and doing burn-offs. As the old saying goes, you fight fire with fire. It is better to have a controlled burn-off and reduce the fuel load than wait for a major bushfire to start on a windy, 40º day and have it potentially destroy lives and property.

The CFS philosophy is that we must 'Prepare. Act. Survive.' It is similar to the scout motto of 'Be Prepared'. Preparation is a key element of bushfire prevention, and anything that helps people prepare their local area for a bushfire should be supported by this parliament. The essence of this bill is to allow local residents to prepare for the fire season by allowing their roads to be clear of overgrown vegetation that, left unchecked, could prove to be a fatal catalyst. I commend the member for Morphett for introducing this bill and I commend the bill to the house.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:25): I also wholeheartedly support the member for Morphett in this bill. In essence, what he is trying to achieve is that adjoining property owners, where their property adjoins a road, would have the ability to clear native vegetation without any restrictions or permission required for two key purposes: for road safety and to reduce the fuel load. That seems very sensible to me.

I accept the fact that road verges can provide very important habitat areas not only for native vegetation but also for lots of animals. There are benefits, but there comes a time when you have to make a choice, and I think it is very important that if the adjoining landowner believes there is a serious road safety issue or there is an unacceptable fuel load, then that adjoining landowner may clear the native vegetation.

The member for Morphett is not saying that has to happen; I do not think anyone needs to fear that all of a sudden every single, little bit of vegetation between the road and the fence will be razed down to some sort of nuclear scorched-earth situation. That is not what he is intending at all; he just wants responsible landowners to have the opportunity to clear it, for these two primary reasons, when it is responsible to do so. I think that is very responsible.

These landowners already have an obligation to get rid of weeds in exactly the same manner, and if they fulfil that responsibility then they are very often already getting rid of native vegetation anyway. It will be the responsible people who are currently trying to get rid of the weeds, it will probably be those same people who are trying to do this in a responsible fashion. In my observations in Stuart and in many other parts of the state, very little attention is paid to this with regard to weeds. That is unfortunate, but it is very often an obligation that landowners are not aware of or that they do not know how to fulfil properly, or they just do not have the resources or the time; they are flat out trying to get rid of the weeds on their own property let alone trying to do it on what they consider to be somebody else's property.

This is pretty sensible, as the member for Davenport said. The CFS would overwhelmingly support this, and I can tell you that in the electorate of Stuart there are many tracks where this native vegetation on the road verge would create a very serious fire risk under the right—or perhaps the wrong—conditions. So I think this is very serious.

Road safety is, of course, incredibly important. Visibility is one thing, and the member for Davenport touched on that, but I can tell the house that there are other road safety risks on road verges as well that are created by native vegetation. As a member of the CFS I have attended more motor vehicle accidents than fires—because that is just how things work, that is exactly what the CFS does across the state; it attends way more motor vehicle accidents than it does fires or any other type of incident—and I have seen situations where the native vegetation has contributed to the accident on the side of the road.

Primarily it is through visibility, but occasionally native vegetation has actually encumbered the rescue and retrieval effort in trying to get people who may be trapped in cars out of those cars. Then, of course, there is the combination of the two together, where a motor vehicle accident might be in native vegetation on the road verge and then all of a sudden there is fuel and sparks and a range of other things. That can create a very serious fire risk and turn the whole incident into a much more serious issue. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.