Natural Resources Committee: Pinery Bushfires

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (11:16): I move:

That the 116^th report of the committee, entitled Pinery Fire Regional Fact-Finding Trip, be noted.

On 25 November 2015, the Pinery area in South Australia's lower and Mid North experienced a fast moving and destructive fire that resulted in two fatalities and five other people suffering critical injuries. Many thousands of head of livestock perished, and hundreds of buildings and many pieces of farm machinery were destroyed along with significant areas of unharvested crops. It was a devastating day for the region and for the state as a whole.

On 2 March 2016, the Natural Resources Committee conducted an all-day field trip to the Pinery area on the suggestion of the Hon. John Dawkins, and I must say that it was something that everyone on the committee immediately thought we needed to do. We also thought it was important to make sure that we provided an opportunity for other members of parliament, both federal and state, to be with us.

On the visit were committee members the Hon. John Dawkins MLC, the Hon. Robert Brokenshire MLC, Mr Jon Gee MP, Ms Annabel Digance MP, the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars MLC and myself. We all viewed firsthand the aftermath of the destruction wrought by the fires, and we met face to face with impacted community members.

Accompanying the committee on this visit were Mr Steven Griffiths MP, the Hon. Tony Piccolo MP, Mr Adrian Pederick MP and Mr Stephan Knoll MP. Mr Matthew Werfel from the office of the federal member for Wakefield (Nick Champion) also was in attendance. There were a number of other people who came with us, including advisers from minister Hunter's office. As we all know, fires do not respect lines drawn on maps, and on the day of the Pinery fire both the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges and the Northern and Yorke NRM regions were impacted. Consequently, after the fires, representatives from both NRM regions collaborated in responding to the fires, in the recovery effort and in supporting this fact-finding tour.

Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges NRM Board Presiding Member, Professor Chris Daniels, and Natural Resources AMLR District Manager, Tony Fox, travelled with the committee on the day, providing background information and commentary. The Northern and Yorke NRM Board Presiding Member, Eric Sommerville; Natural Resources Northern and Yorke Regional Manager, Trevor Naismith; and Northern and Yorke Landscapes and Sustainability Manager, Mr Craig Nixon, joined the tour on site.

Other regional staff assisted by providing presentations and briefings at various sites during the day. I am sure that other members would agree with me that having that commentary was really helpful in us being able to get some sense of the horror the local people had been through. Committee members heard that some of the farming techniques had enabled growers to dramatically boost production, including no-till and low-till planting, and also contributed to the fuel load and exacerbated the speed and severity of the fire, which burned an area not previously considered high risk.

The committee heard that the fire has challenged people to rethink their practices and ideas. Conservation tillage practices are being reviewed and new combinations of techniques—some of them older, back-to-the-future techniques—have been trialled across the fire area to reduce sand and topsoil loss, which is a major concern after fires. Revegetation efforts are being made to create and restore shelter belts as well as contribute to soil improvement. The committee also heard that in this instance pockets of vegetation—indeed, any vegetation higher or greener than annual crops or stubble—proved helpful in slowing down the spread of the fire on the day.

The fire obviously impacted the community very deeply. This made the spirit of optimism in the region during the recovery all the more impressive and moving. The recovery effort has been supported widely by state and local government and, importantly, by many individuals, volunteers and community organisations, with neighbours not hesitating in lending support to each other during the fire and afterwards.

I commend the members of the committee—the member for Napier, the member for Elder, the member for Flinders, the Hon. Robert Brokenshire MLC, the Hon. John Dawkins MLC, and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars MLC—for their contributions to this report. All have worked cooperatively to bring this report to the attention of parliament. Finally, I would like to thank the parliamentary staff for their assistance. I commend the report to the house.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:21): I rise to speak on the Pinery fire regional fact-finding report by the Natural Resources Committee and commend the committee not only for looking at the aftermath of the devastating Pinery fire but also for inviting other members of parliament, both state and federal, to go along. I was certainly very impressed to have the opportunity to see firsthand the carnage that had occurred, even though this was four months after the event, as well as the attempts people were making to reduce drift and soil erosion.

Sadly there were two fatalities and five counts of severe, critical injury. There were about 500 buildings lost on the day, along with approximately 200 vehicles, about half of which were farm equipment, including a lot of headers, which can be valued up to $900,000 per item these days and which can be very expensive just to insure, even if you have a 1 per cent insurance cost on those machines. After the fire, I saw some stunning pictures on news feeds and that kind of thing of harvesters just burned to the ground, tyres gone, chaser bin tractors and their bins just steel rims where the tyres once were, burnt out cabs. There is a lot of plastic in tractors these days and that goes up really quickly. Obviously it was a horrific time for everyone.

Tragically, there were many thousands of heads of livestock lost that day, as well as approximately 22,500 hectares of crops—around 50,000 acres in the old language—with an estimated loss of 60,000 tonnes of yield of grain, 33,000 tonnes of hay and 50,000 tonnes of straw. This was a truly significant fire, as anyone would know who saw the YouTube clips of people travelling through the smoke. Two deaths were two too many, but I am stunned that we did not lose any more people that day. It would have been absolutely terrifying to have been out on the roads; with modern technology nowadays we are brought face to face with all the dramas of life as they happen.

It was an incredible effort by the CFS, the farm firefighters and our Air Tractor firefighting planes to stop it where they did. You have to understand that this fire almost got to Gawler. In fact, it crossed the Sturt Highway and, as scary as it was, that would have been a terrible situation to be in. It took everything in its path and, because of the scale of this fire on a front of many kilometres, it was hard work for the firefighters.

I must comment on Richard and Nancy Bubner at Wasleys who lost a significant amount of their property and a lot of buildings around the house. Richard was in Wasleys that day. He was not out there and could not get back until the fire passed. Because he was calling his wife, Nancy, on the phone to see what was happening, he feared the worst, but she had done a magnificent job, filling gutters, filling what she could with water and making sure that she did what she could. Having such a well-manicured garden and some lawn space and that kind of thing helped her.

The speed and ferocity of the fire meant that it just blew straight over the house so quickly that she could come outside and then tidy up spots where the fire had perhaps caught an eave of the house or something close to the house. They could not save the sheds, of course, but it was a magnificent job and, obviously, the CFS were there pretty quickly and assisted them. Thankfully for Richard, when he got out there Nancy was well and truly alive. She was not just alive: she had essentially saved the family home. They are both to be congratulated, as are the emergency services involved in that part of the situation.

I also mention Richard Konzag from Mallala. I know Richard quite well and I am glad his comments were put in the report. I appreciate that. I think it is good for the committee to be so forthcoming and they are to be commended. In terms of everything they do as farm firefighters and working with the CFS, as the report states:

…Mr Konzag praised CFS efforts but suggested the Emergency Services Levy needed improvement, saying it 'is not working. People cannot get refunded for equipment purchased…We are out there breaking our ass and literally saving peoples' lives and then we get another letter that rates are going up another $200.'

He is exactly right. People are out there saving land, saving livestock and saving people's lives and, from what we have seen in the history of this government and what we will see moving forward with the state Labor government in every bushfire of this kind there will be many people—mainly Liberal voters, I presume—who will be putting their butts on the line, as Mr Konzag indicated, saving lives, saving livestock and saving buildings, saving the insurance industry and saving this state government from costs, only for them to say, 'Oh, thanks for that. Here's another bill.'

As Richard indicated in the report, he can almost live with the $200, but he says it hits you in the head because of the psychological impact of the fact that it is not taking into account the work you did in fighting that fire. There are many hundreds and thousands of farm firefighters involved. I also want to talk about meeting the Angus family, Peter and Paul Angus, who are, I think, in the seat of Goyder.

Mr Griffiths: Yes, just north of Mallala.

Mr PEDERICK: Just north of Mallala. What an inspiring story from the Angus family. Paul, who is the father, was doing his best to save the prize livestock and, despite the fire rearing up behind him, he just got on with the job because that is what you do as a farmer. He was doing his best to save his special stud stock and other stock to get on with the job.

I have mentioned in this place before how Peter caught up with one of his uncles who had about 1,000 litres of water left on a ute, or it might have been half a tank, but he managed to somehow get through the roadblock, he got out there, and they saved the house. We all saw how the house had been severely scorched on a couple of sides, it had caught around under the eaves, and if he had not got there that house would have been gone as well.

Mr Griffiths: The pergola was burnt.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, the pergola had gone. So, I commend the Angus family. The drift is terrible in some of that lighter country on their farm. The level of drift is so light in that country that you cannot manage it with some of the techniques they had to use on some of the heavier country, like going back to tillage, which has been a bit of an off word in many farming areas these days because of no till, or direct drilling. But people were finding that if they did some tillage lines, tens of metres apart, perhaps 30 or 40 metres apart, whatever they wanted to do, and criss-crossed their country, they could save that country from further erosion. When you have that fine sand, once it gets going, if you till it you are only going to make matters worse, if nothing else.

I would like to commend everyone for what they had to do to fight the fire on the day of the Pinery fire. It was very sad and distressing to see two lives lost and five people critically hurt, but I commend the people for seeing that there was not any worse damage. There are always lessons to be learnt from this and I certainly commend the committee for going out and having a look at the results of the Pinery fire. It is a salutary lesson to everyone in this house and to the whole state. It is certainly appreciated that other members could accompany the committee on this trip, and I congratulate the committee on their report.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (11:31): I also wish to comment. I was provided with the opportunity to be a part of the visit because part of the Goyder electorate was impacted by the Pinery fire on 25 November. I thank the committee for its initiative in going there and having the opportunity to talk to some of the people so that they could see firsthand the impact. I do not intend to repeat what others have said, but just reinforce some things, if I may.

For those who have looked at it, either on the ground or on some form of map, 85,000 hectares is so hard to comprehend. I was not there on the day. Like the rest of the state, I kept up with the news reports about it and I was talking to people in the area to see if they were okay. I did not get the chance to go there until early the next morning and I had to break through some lines too and go through some back roads to get around, and I have to say it scared the absolute life out of me because the landscape had completely changed. I have said to people since that it was as though vegetation had never existed in that area because it was completely gone.

I have looked at the YouTube videos about how black the sky was, how difficult it was to get around, and it has made me think about some things. I have taken feedback from others and I have put some issues through to the Natural Resources Committee which I think need to be considered as part of the response to it, but it was such a desperate situation. I am blessed to have known Allan Tiller, who passed away at 69 years of age while fighting the fire. I never met Janet Hughes, a 56-year-old lady from Hamley Bridge who died in the fire. I am aware that 90 people were injured in the fire: five are critical and still dealing with the health issues associated with their recovery.

When you look at the simple numbers: 91 homes were destroyed, and every possession a family owned was gone. The support that existed, not only from the fire impacted area but from across the state and from interstate, is truly inspiring. At the local level, the Mallala Lions Club has been acknowledged seemingly worldwide for what they did in coordinating responses and support for families. It is truly an amazing story. A group made up predominantly of older people worked for days and days, probably 20 hours per day at least, to ensure that they were there as part of a group effort to assist the community in recovery.

It is inspiring. I know of so many groups that donated money, resources, cars, refrigerators and clothing. All of these sorts of things came in, many with good value attached to them, to try to help people who they did not even know, and I have to tell you that it restores your faith in the human species. Since 25 November, the people of the Pinery fire area lived with an everyday reminder in one simple thing: the dust. No matter what the weather conditions, there was dust everywhere. If you were to go there now, it looks like such a different place, but the evidence of the fire still exists in burnt scrub and vegetation on the side of the road. Thank goodness we have good rain.

I heard John Lush, a Mallala farmer, on the radio earlier this week talking about how he thinks they have really good moisture down to a metre. That just emphasises the fact that there is an opportunity to recover from this. It has created enormous challenges for the farming industry. People still have to share equipment far more than they have ever done because they have not been able to replace over 90-odd pieces of farming machinery. They were vaporised in some cases; there was very little left. Much of that equipment is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

There are also challenges associated with the communities in trying to rebuild their homes. There has been a lot on talkback radio in particular about some restrictions that have been in place. I can assure you that I have been told that, yes, there are rules to be observed, but there has been a relaxation of the rules to create an opportunity to do things sooner rather than later. I understand it is not as quick as we would all like, as there are still legal issues associated with it, but there have been some good things.

There has been a willingness of people from the wider area to take in whole families. I know extended families in the Balaklava township who have allowed families of five or six people to move into their homes for months. In some cases it has provided an opportunity for some of the really good managers in the area to look at how they manage their properties, to rejig fence lines, create different areas, and think about what they are going to do on their farm. They have taken the challenges associated with the tragedy as an opportunity to do things better for the future. It shows people's resilience, which is just amazing.

I was pleased when the Natural Resources Committee went around. While I am not a member of the committee, I was grateful for the opportunity issued by the Chair and the executive officer to be a part of it. I, along with other members, visited the Angus family and listened to Paul and Peter. I was moved by the way that Paul explained what he had done to try to preserve their breeding sheep and what had taken decades of work to create. The humility of what he did in the face of significant adversity is humbling.

Everyone I have spoken to in the Pinery fire area has a story. There was an amazing story of a farm fire unit trying to get through and save a property. They had reached the stage where they did not think they could do it, and they had almost decided they had to get away to help themselves, when all of a sudden a plane came through the clouds and dumped water onto the house and saved it. The efforts of CFS members, the farm units that responded, emergency services professionals and the pilots actually saved a lot of places.

I know it hit me on 26 November, when I drove around Hamley Bridge and wondered, 'How the hell is that town still there?' The fire got so close to even the fringe properties. It had burned the back of one property, seemingly jumped over the house and burned the front garden. The fire came right up against the hospital, which was on the extreme edge of town, and right next to the big gas bottle that supports the hospital. I do not know how that did not explode. Everywhere I go, people have a story to tell.

There is a high level of frustration about communication challenges on the day, be that the landline or mobile connections. I think it is great that we send out text messages to people in affected areas about things they need to be aware of. I have also heard stories from people who did not even realise there was a fire. It was a shocker of a day, and they had decided to stay inside. If you were not connected to the information flow in some way and if you did not look out the window, you would not have known. It was fact for them.

A person I know really well, who is switched on to what occurs in the world, had come in to do some bookwork because it was too bad for harvest. He listened to the news on ABC radio, found out about the fire and thought, 'Crikey, what the hell are we going to do?' The responders came straightaway, but there are so many people who have shared these sorts of stories with me. The issues I took to the committee, which came from feedback to me, were about the protection of regional communities and how you actually allow some form of buffer zone or cleared area to exist while still allowing the opportunity to make an income from land that is around a regional community. That is one of the great challenges.

I also put before the committee another matter that was put to me about vegetation approaching intersections. The member for Hammond I think spoke about this too, about how lucky everybody was that there were no really serious accidents as people were either escaping or coming to help or, as an emergency service, responding to an issue. The question that has been posed to me is: is there a chance to review the amount of vegetation in, say, the areas approaching intersections to give a greater opportunity?

I know, even in the non-fire periods, the Mallala community and some of those through the Mid North have lived with the tragedy of accidents occurring when people have not given way at intersections and there have been collisions in vehicles. Is it driver error? You could argue that. Is it indeed, in some cases, the vegetation that is on the intersections? Whose responsibility is it to maintain that? What should be planted and what should not? I think that is one of the issues the committee needs to look at.

Can I just finish with, and the member for Hammond referred to this too, Richard Konzag talking about the emergency services levy. Mr Konzag contacted me probably in early January; they had just received the bills. I wrote to the Treasurer about whether there was an opportunity to provide some form of leeway on when these bills would be required to be paid, because we had families dealing with a hell of a lot of effort. What they did not want to have to do was pay another bill to the state government, even when you discounted the increases that had occurred.

I initially got a response from minister Bettison's office. Then I said, 'I appreciate that, but my request is to the Treasurer.' The Treasurer ensured that one of his senior advisers spoke to me about it, but there was still unable to be any change to it. In situations like this, I think there needs to be a policy and an opportunity to look at, in severely impacted areas, what the collection requirements normally would be of state taxes and levies to give some surety and belief to the people who are impacted that the state government truly does care and that it is not just an opportunity to send another bill. I commend the committee for its report and look forward to the changes that will come from it.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:42): I thank the Natural Resources Committee for taking such a strong interest in this event. When I use the word 'event', it seems to really downplay the very significant importance of the Pinery fire, but I do really appreciate the fact that the Natural Resources Committee takes a great interest in a whole range of issues across our state. I also appreciate the fact that I was invited to participate in their tour, but very unfortunately it just was not possible for me to go that day.

The day of the fire itself was actually a pretty terrifying day from a bushfire risk perspective. In our electorate of Stuart over the last six years, we have had five very serious bushfires—four in the Upper Mid North/Southern Flinders area and one in the Far North East of the state—so it is something that is never very far from my mind. On that day of the fire, I was actually thinking more fearfully about parts of the electorate of Stuart farther north than where the Pinery fire actually happened.

All day, as the day was building up and getting worse and worse through the morning, I was thinking about the places further north that I thought were at greater risk. At about 12 o'clock, I think it was, when it became apparent that there was a fire building and becoming serious in the Pinery region, to be fair, it caught me a bit by surprise. But do you know what? It caught everybody else by surprise, too. It was not expected.

Our experience with fires in general is typically with regard to bushfires, and typically we think that if a bushfire burns itself out towards a stubble paddock, that will be a tremendous opportunity to fight the fire and hopefully stop it there. But, of course, the difference was that these were not stubble paddocks (this was early in the season) but crops. They were crops that had not had a great deal of rain on them toward the end of the growing season, so they were pretty well cured, so there were exceptionally high fuel loads in these paddocks. That really is what separated this fire so early in the fire season from what we are far more used to dealing with, which are fires much later in the fire season.

I arrived at Kapunda, which is the southern end of the electorate of Stuart, the next day at 6.45am, and I can tell members it was bedlam at that stage. Nobody in the town was at risk of being burnt or anything like that at that point in time, but there were people still trying to leave town and there were people trying to come back to town. It very quickly became apparent that what had been shared over the public media and social media the previous afternoon and evening had not resulted, unfortunately, in a careful, measured, effective and useful set of messages for people.

Some people had been told to go to the school at Kapunda, some people had been told to go to the oval at Kapunda and some people had been told to evacuate Kapunda, keeping in mind that Kapunda, while it did not immediately suffer any effects from the fire, was under extreme threat late the previous afternoon. Some people were told to evacuate to Eudunda, and when they got there they were told, ‘No, Eudunda is under threat, you need to evacuate to Morgan.’ I know people who left and went to Morgan to try to keep themselves and their families, and particularly young children, safe from the fire, at the same time as other people were told, ‘No, stay right in the middle of Kapunda.’ I am not saying that to have a go at anybody, I say it because it is one of the really important lessons that we all need to learn out of this experience.

The electorate of Stuart, out of all the electorates that were affected by this fire, was affected nominally less than the other state electorates. Let me tell you, Deputy Speaker, the impact on one family, one farm or one person is devastating, and it does not matter whether there was 80 per cent in one electorate and 20 per cent in the other, or 20 per cent in the first electorate and 80 per cent in the other, it is actually all about people. The people in the electorate of Stuart, who were affected by this fire, have suffered, and are still suffering, just as much as the people and the families in any other electorate, even though there may well have been more of them in other electorates.

It is a terrifying and devastating experience. I have friends who were caught up in the Wangary fire, which is a long time ago now, who are still scarred mentally from that experience. I have had people contact me after the Bangor fire, particularly people who were under no threat during the Bangor fire but who were under threat during the Mount Remarkable fire 20-plus years earlier, and when the Bangor fire came along it brought back all these extraordinary fears, emotions and wounds, which apparently were healed, but when a similar threat came along it was clear were not actually properly healed.

Something else we need to get out of all of this is: what is the very best that we can do for the people caught up in the Pinery fire? Not just with regard to the very important job of helping them recover their lives, their businesses, their homes, their fences, their sheds, their stock, etc., but what can we do so that in 20 years' time they are not still suffering in the same way that some people in my electorate, in the Mount Remarkable district, are. These are the responsibilities that we have in the aftermath of this fire.

It goes without saying that I and everybody in this place have extraordinary appreciation for all the volunteers who helped, as well as the people who work professionally in government agencies. Of course, we think of emergency services workers most immediately because they are the ones on the front line, but an enormous number of people have provided support, and still are, in a volunteer and professional capacity in an enormous number of different ways.

Of course, I want to put on the record my thanks to Mr Vince Monterola who has coordinated so much of that effort. I have met with him and I will continue to support Mr Alex Zimmerman, who has recently taken over from him, who has another big task still to do. I attended several meetings in the district at the time, as I know many other local MPs and some government ministers did as well, and I think this is a very good example of when the stuff hits the fan, everybody comes together to do the very best they can. I understand and agree with the comments that the members for Hammond and Goyder made about fees and charges and things, and I support them entirely. However, separate to that, I know that the government was doing everything it possibly could at the time to productively and effectively deal with and help the people who were affected by the fire, and I thank them for that.

Minister Bignell (the Minister for Agriculture) and I attended a function together at the Schuster family farm, which had many people from the Pinery district and, particularly, the more immediate Freeling district. Lots of functions like that were held, and I think there is certainly a need for them to continue to be held and for Liberal, Labor and Independent MPs to support them to the very best of their abilities. As I said before, the fire is out, but the issues are not over, they are not dealt with.

As to future fires, we probably will see more and more—certainly the risks are growing anyway, let's hope we do not see more and more fires—but certainly the risks are growing with fires. The seasons are pretty good at the moment and agricultural techniques are getting better and better. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, when we compare what happened in Pinery last November with what happened in Bangor 2½ years ago, with similar weather threats, there were completely different outcomes in completely different parts of the state. We need to be right onto this.

I would like to finish by saying that I worry about bushfires all over the state, particularly, of course, in my electorate of Stuart. The Natural Resources Committee did a body of work a few years ago with regard to the Adelaide Hills. I am terrified about what might happen in the Adelaide Hills. Please, let what happened in Pinery be a very stark and real reminder for us that these threats are moving south every year.

Time expired.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:52): I rise today to make a contribution to this report from the Natural Resources Committee. I do so as a member of the committee but as one who, unfortunately, was not able to take part in the visit to the Pinery fireground on that particular day. The rest of the committee was able to get along, and I note that there were also some visiting MPs: the members for Light, Goyder and Hammond and the federal member for Wakefield also attended. The member for Schubert was also there, along with many staff, including DEWNR staff, and of course local input was had.

I was not able to visit the Pinery fireground with the committee, but I stand and speak today as one who experienced the Wangary bushfire some 11 years ago. The similarities are extraordinary: almost exactly the same area was burnt, around 80,000 hectares, and it was almost within the same time frame, about six hours or half a day, that this devastation occurred. I note that the member for Mawson, who is now a member of this chamber, in the aftermath of the Wangary fire actually assisted one of the ministers at the time on that fireground and got to know, amongst others, my father, who was chair of the District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula at the time.

It is all too fresh in my memory, as the member for Stuart said. It is 11 years ago now, but I understand completely and absolutely what these people went through on that particular day. It was a catastrophic day and we will have catastrophic days again. Each and every summer we will be faced with the threat, at least, of bushfire. I have no doubt that, at some point in the future, similar fires will occur. My biggest fear, of course—and the member for Heysen mentioned her residency in the Adelaide Hills—is what could and might happen should a fire occur on a catastrophic day within the Adelaide Hills. Of course, that is to take nothing away from what can happen, and we have seen occur, in an agricultural landscape. There are lots of reasons for that and I might take some time to talk about those today.

I am actually going to congratulate and give credit where credit is due on the government's response to this. Minister Zoe Bettison was quick in her action. What do you do in the aftermath? What do you do? You have to react quickly. You have to provide support and funds where they are needed. You have to provide the opportunity for people to deal with their insurance agents and deal with livestock that need destroying. You have to help people and assist them in the clean-up, revegetation, refencing and rebuilding of outbuildings.

It is not only all the physical things, you also need to help people repair their lives because, sadly, there were five critical injuries and two lives lost on that particular day. All of those others who did the work, and we have heard names mentioned today, people who made an extraordinary effort to protect their homes and their own assets, they were confronted with a situation that they probably never ever dreamed that they would be confronted with.

For the most part, I would suggest that those who were prepared were those who were best able to respond to the emergency. I am one who believes that in life we make decisions based on experiences we have had. In this situation, I am going to suggest that a lot of the people, most of the people in fact, who were confronted with the bushfire at Pinery on that day had not experienced such a day or such an incident before. So, their reaction, even to themselves, was unknown. They did not know how they were going to react confronted with this because they had not had any experience to base that situation on.

It is most important to be prepared for these situations, as prepared as you can be, and I am not saying anything new here. It is important to have a plan, a significant and detailed plan, for these events. I would suggest that people consider a contingency plan as well because the situation on the fireground can change very quickly. If your initial and priority plan is not able to be effected, then you have to know what you are going to do next.

I might just run through some of the findings that came from the field trip and are documented in this report. Those topics that require further consideration are such things as vegetation clearance around road sections, which the member for Morphett and the member for Goyder have both talked about, and firebreak shelter belts around townships and how this may affect the amount of land in production. Of course, some of this country is extraordinarily valuable these days. As farmers who want to buy the farm next door know full well, it is extraordinarily valuable and they do not look like giving up too much of it for the sake of a firebreak. But it is always about protecting property and also about protecting townships because in this case there were townships under threat.

The dot points go on to include preventative measures and monitoring, timing of return to homes after fire, the contribution of weather and terrain for the spread of the fire and its perimeter, and appropriate aerial plant and how it can be deployed during the fire season. That is something we did not have during the Wangary bushfire, the ability of the emergency services to deploy aircraft. In my opinion, that has been one significantly good outcome from the Wangary fire, to now have the opportunity to deploy aircraft at Pinery, and we also saw it at Sampson Flat. These guys cannot stop a fire, but they can certainly save a house and they can save lives. I take my hat off to them.

The other findings were whether after grassfires such as Pinery and Wangary, South Australia had received adequate federal assistance for fire recovery, and the potential for the Green Army to assist with recovery, particularly revegetation. We also discovered, and this is not for the first time, that many of the landowners, property owners and people involved were underinsured. Of course, insurance is something that none of us particularly likes paying. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Mr PENGILLY: Madam Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed: