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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-05-08 Daily Xml
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NATIVE VEGETATION (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. G.M. GUNN (Stuart) (10:36): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Native Vegetation Act 1991. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. G.M. GUNN (Stuart) (10:36): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I draw to the attention of the house the urgent need to protect the public of South Australia against the ravages of bushfire and to ensure that land managers and owners are in a position to carry out responsible, effective and necessary action which will protect not only them but also the public.

We have had a debate in South Australia for a considerable time about the difficulties that people have with the exceptional build-up of hazardous material and the failure of governments of all persuasions to take firm and decisive action to give these people the ability to contain and control bushfires. The time for action has long passed.

Bearing in mind what took place on Kangaroo Island and Lower Eyre Peninsula, and elsewhere, we cannot allow those experiences to go unanswered. At the end of the day, unfortunately, in my view, there will be a calamity. When that happens those who have stood in the way of commonsense approaches will have to accept responsibility. They cannot say that they have not been warned or spoken to and representations have not been made to them—they have. The people concerned have consistently tried to make out that there is not a real problem.

Ministers have not been strong enough to deal with entrenched bureaucracy. I have to say that I have confidence that Mr Mutton will do his utmost to resolve some of these difficulties, but there is an inbuilt, entrenched attitude within the native vegetation bureaucracy which is not only unhelpful but also unwise and, in my view, a danger to the community.

I do not have a lot of knowledge about some things we discuss in this house, but one or two matters I do have some knowledge about—and one of them is bushfires and controlled burning off. I have had experience with that; nearly every year of my life I have been involved in it. A couple of cogent points cannot be ignored. First, you have to be prepared; secondly, you must have decent breaks; and, thirdly, you have to know how to read the wind and hold your nerve. If you do not take preventative action, you are building a problem for the future. Every time I drive home to my farm I drive past a plaque on the side of the road where an unfortunate person who was trying to fight a bushfire lost their life. It will happen in that area again.

This bill is sensible and reasonable. The first amendment in the bill involves one of the matters which the Director of the Country Fire Service, Mr Euan Ferguson, said needed to be dealt with, that is, take 'burning' out of the definition of 'clearance'. If the Director of the Country Fire Service is not to be listened to, who will we listen to? Will we listen to the eccentric people in the Wilderness Society or other irrational groups such as that? The Director of the Country Fire Service said this to the Economic and Finance Committee a few years ago. Surely, we should listen to him because he has responsibility to try to manage and contain huge bushfires.

Next, the bill removes the unintended decision-making of the Native Vegetation Council in relation to people putting water points on pastoral land. It was never the intention and it was never enforced until this government came to power. Obviously, ministers and backbenchers who do not understand these things are allowing bureaucrats to get their way. It is an absolutely stupid decision and the amendment to section 27 is absolutely essential.

The bill also provides the ability to put in decent firebreaks of up to 20 metres—15 metres in some areas—and to burn up to 100 hectares during a prescribed time of the year to hazard reduce. That is absolutely essential. Between 1 March and 31 October is the time of the year when the fires will not be extreme but when one will be able to reduce combustible material. It is unbelievable that, whereas we used to burn off to reduce the hazard, over the last few years we have not been able to do that. That is why we have had wildfires.

It is beyond belief that land managers cannot do this and, if they know what they are doing, they will not cause any harm. Aborigines used to burn the country; otherwise, it results in fires such as that which occurred on Kangaroo Island where huge areas were wiped out. The cost to the taxpayer, the disruption to the community and the ongoing difficulty is amazing.

The bill also provides for the ability to put in a decent dam without having to go through the nonsense and humbug that the Natural Resources Committee witnessed on Kangaroo Island. I think one of the classic examples of stupidity and bureaucracy gone made is where a person was to be prosecuted and, at the same time, the people on Kangaroo Island had to rely on a dam for adequate water to live. If ever there was an act of stupidity and bureaucracy gone mad it was that instance.

In my time in this place I have seen rather interesting innovation on behalf of bureaucracy, but this was the best example of it; this took the prize! If they were rated one to 10 this would be up at the top. No matter where you went in the world, if you told people about this sort of nonsense, they would think you had been drinking, but that is the sort of bureaucratic nonsense people have to put up with. There was the example of the farmer who wanted to put in a small dam. We are suffering the worst drought in the history of the state and they gave him the run-around.

There was not an ounce of common sense. Nevertheless, the minister marches on. The minister has been advised by people who obviously do not like farmers and do not like people involved in other activities. They even interfered—this merry band of individuals—and caused problems with the sealing of the highway from Port Augusta to Port Lincoln and with the new sealed road going to the ferry they interfered on road safety issues and caused difficulty for the council sealing the road. You would have to have something wrong with you, but this band of merry men march on, obviously with the full support and concurrence of the minister. It is unbelievable.

These provisions which I bring to the house today have been brought here after a great deal of careful consideration. Some of us have had some experience in these areas and only want to see common sense apply. If you ensure that some of this decision making is handed back to councils (locally elected people), if they get it wrong, the community can get rid of them. Unfortunately the community cannot get rid of these appointed individuals, so this particular measure, which I have brought to the attention of the house today, is necessary and absolutely essential if we are going to protect the people of South Australia against the unintended ravages of bushfire.

I appeal to the good judgment of this house, and to the members of parliament who obviously want to ensure that the citizens of this state are not put in danger, that huge amounts of money which can be better spent do not have to be utilised to contain massive bushfires, and that the average landholder, going about their business, is not interfered with or harassed or having day-to-day management decisions made more difficult. At the end of the day, common sense must apply.

We are living in a society which is crying out for agricultural production. With the latest modern trend of global positioning operations and all that modern technology, there is going to be a requirement to knock the odd tree down and to remove little islands of scrub. because things have moved on and there is better technology. Small areas of limestone can be ripped out and turned into productive agricultural land.

The Native Vegetation Act has never contained provisions to take account of the latest technology in agriculture. These provisions which I have drafted and put before the house today do take into account some of those difficulties. I urge the backbenchers of the government to take heed of some of the things that I am saying because, at the end of the day, these problems are not going to go away. They are going to become more difficult and people are going to become more frustrated and, at the end of the day, the community of South Australia is not going to be better off, in fact, it is going to be worse off.

So, I appeal to the good judgment of this house and I sincerely hope that the government will respond. It is incumbent upon the responsible minister to respond. You cannot hide behind the screen in the other place. It is all very well for the government to adjourn this particular bill and hope that it will drop off the Notice Paper. My challenge is that I want this matter fully debated, because that is in the interests of the people of South Australia, so that adequate firebreaks and access tracks can be constructed so that firefighters can safely go in to contain and back-burn to stop the extent of bushfires. You cannot expect people to go in to contain bushfires unless they can get out. That is a fundamental principle and, if you do not understand that, you do not understand anything.

I would say that some of the people who have been advising the minister have a limited understanding of some of these problems. I gave the example on a previous occasion in the house of the Wilmington fire where the gentleman had taken exceptional action to prevent the bushfire from burning into Wilmington. His major concern was whether these people would come up and harass him. He had to grade to extend the width of the road to stop the fire. If he was acting in the public interest and as a responsible person, why should he be put under any stress? Why should that be because of these people who have these odd ideas?

The matter is now clearly in the hands of the government of South Australia. Let me say to you, you will not get away with it if there is a disaster and there is another big bushfire, because you have had the opportunity—not once, but many times—to do something about it. The provision of removing the definition of 'burning' from the act is being put to this house on the recommendation of the Director of the Country Fire Service—not me, the Director of the Country Fire Service. So, you can make all sorts of comments about me, but the director does have very considerable responsibilities, which he discharges, in my view in an excellent manner. He has the long-term interests of the people of this state at heart and he supports his volunteers.

These provisions are put here to support the volunteers. It is hard enough to get volunteers to do this work. I say in conclusion that the volunteers carry the state in many of these areas. When you have clowns from the Native Vegetation Council going around trying to usurp and override what volunteers do in containing bushfires—fools with measuring tapes measuring firebreaks wanting to illegally prosecute people, telling untruths—then it is up to this government or any government to come to their senses and fix the problem. I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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