Native Vegetation (Road Safety and Roadside Fuel Reduction) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 10 March 2016.)

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:27): In the time remaining I would like to make a contribution to this bill, and congratulate the member for Morphett on bringing this bill to the parliament once again. It is in a slightly different form but essentially he has been working on this particular bill for quite some years—and it has great merit.

This bill will allow property owners to clean up road verges without having to go through the red tape of applying to remove native vegetation and cumbersome state government and local government regulations. It is a common-sense bill. The aim is to remove the confusion where property owners have to apply to clean up the road verges along their properties, and it will allow property owners to get on with protecting their property, reduce the chance of bushfire and increase the chances of bushfire survival.

The member talks a lot about bushfire management and bushfire control and making the environment and landscape a safer place, and I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. I also believe very firmly that a wider road is a safer road. It is not just that fuel loads are reduced but it is also—in my part of the world at least—so that the transit of quite wide farm machinery can proceed unhindered and also so that just occasionally, if a kangaroo pops out of the scrub, people have time to see it and take action to avoid it, and time and space to pass other cars and also oncoming traffic and quite large trucks.

Considerable confusion exists because of the current application process which prevents people from doing the right thing as they have often been too scared to clean up, adding to an already considerable fuel load after our Mediterranean summers, our wet winters and our spring growth period.

Coronial evidence highlights the number of people who have died on roads fleeing fires; evidence also shows that many deliberately-lit fires also start on road verges. Thousands of tonnes of branches, bushes and leaf litter on road verges add to bushfire loads. I speak from experience here and, sadly, in my part of the world at least bushfires have occurred all too frequently, often with significant damage and often, rather sadly, with the loss of life.

In a bushfire situation, to be in a vehicle on the road is a very dangerous place to be. I know for a fact that in the Wangary bushfire, which I experienced firsthand, people in that situation died. Had they had better vision, had there been removal of some of the vegetation at least and a broadening of the road carriageway, they would have been in a lot safer situation, had vision and been better able to proceed through what was a very dangerous situation.

There has been a lot of consultation go on, and I congratulate the member for Morphett. He has talked with the South Australian CFS, our SES, our MFS and our Local Government Association. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.