Bushfire Preparedness

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (14:23): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister update the house on the prescribed burns program that is reducing bushfire risk and protecting South Australian families in the lead-up to summer?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:23): I thank the member for Newland for his question. I know how important bushfire preparedness is to the communities that he has the privilege of representing in the Adelaide Hills.

It was good to be able to join the Minister for Emergency Services in the member for Newland's electorate three weeks ago to launch, at Black Hill Conservation Park, the preventative burn program season. That will see a program of some 65 programmed prescribed burns occurring throughout South Australia, many of those in the Mount Lofty Ranges, to keep lives and property safe from the ever-present threat of bushfire in South Australia, particularly in the Mount Lofty Ranges, which we know, given their population and geography, are particularly vulnerable to the threat of bushfires.

We have a program of prescribed burns across our state, which is a rolling program. It doesn't mean we will finish that program in the spring season. Those that are not completed will be rolled into the season after summer, the autumn season, once the hotter, drier and riskier weather is over. That is an ongoing rolling series of burns based on a threats analysis that looks at the most difficult areas and the areas that are of highest risk of bushfire and, obviously, threats to lives and property as well.

This year, we are continuing a body of work initiated by the previous government, which trialled burning on private land, and we are progressing that beyond the trial to a permanent strategy of burning on private land. This is, of course, because fire does not know when to stop at boundaries between different tenures and will move from government-controlled land onto private land, creating a much greater risk, particularly when private landowners may not be adept at undertaking prescribed burns in an appropriate way.

We have the CFS, which includes the biggest CFS brigade, which is held by the Department for Environment and Water, working alongside expert fire officers within the Department for Environment and Water, working alongside officers who volunteer through the CFS to keep South Australia's landscape, particularly the Adelaide Hills, safe from this particular threat.

This year, I am pleased to be able to update the house, we have been able to undertake a cultural burn as well in the Far North of the state in Witjira National Park—a unique opportunity to involve traditional owners in the management of the landscape that they have care and control of and to have a cultural aspect to preventative burning as well. That not only fulfils cultural needs but also creates a safer environment and has ecological outcomes as well. There are always risks associated with prescribed burns, but with appropriate management, taking into consideration threats and managing the situation with the weather, the government will continue to undertake this critical service.