HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-04 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

BUSHFIRE INQUIRY

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (11:00): I move:

That the Natural Resources Committee inquire into and report on any proposal, matter or issue concerned with bushfire.

The reason I move this motion is because, as we are well aware, the country through Victoria has been ravaged by bushfire in recent days, and it is still going on. South Australia has had a number of very bad bushfires, which I know the member for Flinders, and others, will wish to comment on. It seems to me that the parliament has this all wrong in relation to bushfire. Parliaments all around Australia tend to wait for a bushfire to occur, express great sorrow and regret about the impact of the bushfire, and then, basically, let the agencies proceed along their merry way, without the parliament having any great oversight of what they are doing and why they are doing it.

I have previously been a minister for emergency services, and I accept that the government ministers might be behind the scenes having a quiet chat to a few of the agency heads and asking, 'How well prepared are we and what can we do to improve?' However, that does not educate the parliament. As we develop into a more urban environment there are more urban MPs who are less educated about fire and what one can and cannot do with fire and how to manage it.

My view is that not only is the community generally becoming de-skilled but I think the parliament itself is becoming de-skilled about the issue of bushfire. Bushfire is a very complex matter. One has only had to follow the media in the past month or, indeed, after the terrible Eyre Peninsula fires, to see that there is a pattern to the issues that come out. There is the issue of the rights and the ability to clear native vegetation, and there is the issue of building design and building standards. The most recent one to come out is the issue of fire bunkers. I noticed today there is an advertisement in the paper about fire bunkers. The whole safety question, as to whether they are an appropriate answer or a part of the answer, needs to be looked at extraordinarily carefully.

The issue of community education, about what is expected of the community by the fire authorities, needs to be looked at carefully. When there was a bushfire in Belair about 18 months ago people who were new to the district rang my electorate office to express surprise that there was not a CFS truck at the top of their driveway. I explained to the ladies concerned that there were 15 CFS units and 9,000 homes—they could do the sums.

There is a naivety, I think, within large sections of our community, about the response of the CFS or the MFS and their roles and obligations. There is the whole issue of local government and its interaction with fire. In my own electorate, there have been discussions about the Mitcham and Adelaide Hills councils' treatment on Sheoak Road.

There are more letters in the Mount Barker Courier this week about how they have put traffic chicanes, which are one-way, one-lane, traffic slowers, in what was previously a fire track. So, they have deliberately put in four chicanes to slow down and obstruct traffic in the very road that was probably designed to allow emergency exit or access for units.

Naturally, some of the residents are questioning whether we have actually got that policy right. The Mitcham council had a debate in its own constituency in the last year about whether to close the Grevillea Way fire track. It is having a debate, as we speak, about whether more fire exits should be allowed out of Blackwood Park.

These are not just issues for local council. These are issues of importance for the state because we need to get our fire planning and our fire response right. We cannot let it remain wrong, as it is in some instances. The other issue is: have we got our bushfire planning right? Every local council in bushfire-prone areas has a bushfire planning committee of some description, and it is generally set out under the appropriate emergency services act or what used to be the old country fires act.

That structure needs to be reviewed for this reason: the parliament has recognised that water catchments do not match council boundaries, and so, to get proper water planning and proper catchment planning, the parliament has set up water catchment boards, which have now been taken over by natural resource management boards.

The fire committees are set up in local council boundaries and not in fire regions, and it seems to me that we need a whole of region response planning committee and not planning committees based on local council areas. I know that if a fire of the Victorian variety went through the Mitcham Hills, it would be out of the Mitcham council area and into the Onkaparinga council area within about 10 minutes, and it seems ridiculous to have two committees trying to manage that issue.

The fire planning arrangements need to be reworked so that you look at fire risk zones and form a committee structure around the fire risk zones and not on local council boundaries. It seems to me that the whole bushfire planning scenario is flawed because it is post event. It is after the fire that we suddenly get concerned. Government ministers will tell you that I have written numerous letters to many of them about the bushfire preparedness of the Mitcham Hills, which I represent.

The local CFS tells me that the Mitcham Hills is one of the worst fire areas not only in Australia but in the world. I think the parliament has a duty here. Other parliaments have set up road safety standing committees in the parliament. I think the parliament has a duty in South Australia, which is very fire prone, to set up a standing committee of the parliament, and, tomorrow, a piece of legislation will be debated that proposes to do that after the 2010 election.

In the meantime, the Natural Resources Committee of the parliament has already been taking evidence from Euan Ferguson, the Mayor of Mitcham and others about bushfires. We have a responsibility to ask that committee to start the oversight process because, in a year's time, the lessons of Victoria will be forgotten. We should say to that committee, 'Start doing the work now so that we can be the best prepared that we can be.'

I am not naive enough to say that the committee is going to stop the fire. That is not going to happen, but the committee should be able to hold the agencies to account and bring to the parliament the issues we need to address to make sure that the parliament and the system per se is as bushfire-ready as we can get it. If we do not do that, then the next time there is a bad fire we will all be hypocrites standing up in this place saying what great sorrow there is. The question will be asked: have we done everything that we possibly can?

One area that I have not mentioned is that of a district's capacity to evacuate. One of the areas the committee could look at is whether areas have the capacity to evacuate if, as happened in Victoria, people do want to run the risk of trying to evacuate. Essentially, that is my argument. My argument is that parliament should be proactive, and not reactive, in planning for bushfires. I hope the house will support the motion in due course.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:11): I endorse the member for Davenport's proposal; I think it does have merit. As the member for Davenport indicated, there are a whole lot of issues relating to fires that need to be addressed. I think that some views are based on folklore, not necessarily on science.

Recently, on television we had an image of someone who supposedly cleared around their house in Victoria, and their house was saved. I do not believe it was saved because of that: it was saved because the embers did not rain down on top of the house. I can show members a photo from someone in Victoria who did not clear at all around their house but built a house out of concrete and glue. That house survived and so did the person who owns it. If anyone wants to see that photograph, I am more than happy to show it. That person did not clear at all around their house.

There are different scenarios. For this particular person's house, the concrete material was of a special mixture and it survived, we know, temperatures of around 1,200°C. There are varying interpretations. Some people advocate extensive firebreaks. Obviously, you need some for access and you need some for minimal protection, but they do not provide any absolute protection, particularly in a firestorm where embers, propelled at the speed of the wind, rain down from the sky.

Those issues need to be looked at. In terms of building standards, following the experience of that gentleman in Victoria, in the heart of the bushfire area, maybe we need to have a closer look at what sort of materials people use to build their houses in high fire risk areas. Likewise, there is the question of whether some areas should be quarantined.

I have argued for a long time that there are some areas, I believe, in the Adelaide Hills where it is inappropriate to build because of the fire risk. There are some such areas, and the member for Davenport knows it well. Even in Upper Sturt, there are some appropriate areas on which to build, because the land is already cleared, but some areas—not just Upper Sturt, but elsewhere—are too dangerous to allow people to build.

We do not allow people to build where they can pollute the reservoir, so why do we allow people to build where they can put at risk their lives and those of volunteers and other emergency services personnel?

I think there is an urgent issue that needs to be looked at, and that is the situation of schools in fire risk areas. Some schools in the Adelaide Hills have enclosed air conditioning systems but, from what I understand, most of the rooms could not accommodate all the children in the school anyway. That issue needs to be addressed very promptly because, as the member for Davenport said, the Mitcham Hills area is one of the high fire risk areas. I live there, at Coromandel Valley.

I would regard my own electorate through Happy Valley and Aberfoyle Park as a moderate risk area, particularly the schools. Even on a non-fire day, you cannot even get past some of the schools at home time. At Craigburn Primary School on Murrays Hill Road the other day, you could not even get past the school because all the mums and dads were picking up their children, because nowadays nobody wants them to walk home, which I think is unfortunate. You cannot even get past the school on a non-fire day, so God help us if there is a fire and the parents all rush down to collect their kids.

In terms of school policies, when I was chair of Coromandel Primary School, we had a policy of having a safe area on the oval. No-one wants to declare a safe area now, because it may not be safe. If you get all the children on the oval and they all get burnt to death, who will wear that responsibility?

It is the same for local ovals. Councils do not want to say that a local oval is safe, because people might congregate there and then get burnt to death. So we have a grey area of uncertainty about where to go, and that ties in with this 'stay or go' policy.

I am a great supporter of cool burns—pattern burning, or prescribed burning—and have been for a long time. Many people do not cool burn on their property because they are worried about the fire escaping; however, I have recently written to the minister (and I see him in the chamber) suggesting that the CFS be allowed to do cool burns, as they did when I belonged to Blackwood CFS a million years ago. We frequently cool burned as part of our training—and it was fantastic training.

I do not believe that any cool burn undertaken by Blackwood CFS ever escaped, and they did a lot of good in terms of helping to reduce fire risks. Much of our landscape is able to cope with fire but it is not able to cope with fire at extended intervals, when we get these intense fires that cause a lot of damage not only to the natural environment but also to the built environment.

Last weekend was the 70th anniversary of the Happy Valley CFS and we were fortunate to have there one of its founding members, Dud Nicolle. He was an 18 year old in 1939, and he told me—as did some of the other group captains of more recent years—that they frequently did cool burns. For some reason (and I think it has to do with issues about asthma and other respiratory concerns) they have been more or less stopped from doing that in recent years. Now, everything is a trade-off, so one has to weigh up the issue of people's respiratory problems and the question of cool burns, and tackle whether to allow the CFS and other authorised bodies to undertake extensive pattern burning in the cooler times of the year.

I am not suggesting that we take liability away from private landholders, but I believe we need to look at making it easier for private landholders to undertake cool burns and assist them in that process. Currently, if you undertake a cool burn that gets away you are totally liable. I am not suggesting that we take away that liability totally, that would be foolish; however, I think we have to look at the issue, because otherwise we will not have many private landholders undertaking cool burns, particularly in areas like the Adelaide Hills. It might be different farther out, but not in the hills.

Just recently I have taken up the issue of areas under the control of SA Water, such as the Happy Valley Reservoir. When I spoke to Dud Nicolle (whom I mentioned earlier) he said that to his recollection—and to mine—that area has not been burnt in 40 years. Now, that area is very close to a lot of homes in my electorate and has two pine forests as well, and in my view it needs to be pattern burnt—and the sooner, the better. Embers from Happy Valley Reservoir, whether from the pine forest or the bushland, would travel right over the settled areas of Aberfoyle Park and Happy Valley. So that area, as well as places such as Belair park and the Sturt Gorge Recreation Park, also need to be pattern burnt—again, the sooner the better.

I would like to make one other point. I think we also need to look at the issue of bunkers, and a parliamentary committee could do that. Bunkers are fine if there is an independent oxygen source because, as we know, fires use a lot of oxygen. People who have sheltered in their cellars have died through asphyxiation because the fire has taken all the oxygen. I think there is a lot of scope here for a committee to do worthwhile things.

There was a royal commission in 1939 following the fires in Victoria and also here, which led to the formation of the CFA, the equivalent of our Country Fire Service. That was an excellent outcome. There was a federal committee report in 1984 and also one in Victoria. For some reason, after a while we seem to get apathetic about these things and forget them. However, if you have experienced these things—and I was only a little kid at the time, when two police officers were burned to death near where I lived—you never forget them; when the area around your house has been so full of smoke that you cannot see very far in front of you it is a very frightening experience. I support the member for Davenport. The sooner we consider this issue in a sensible, rational way, the better everyone will be. It will help reduce the risk to those who live in the Adelaide Hills and in other areas of the state. I support this motion.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN (Stuart) (11:20): I support the motion, because there is nothing more frustrating than to sit by and see bureaucracy continue to endanger the public. I have listened with interest to the member for Fisher, and he talks about cold burning. I support cold burning wholeheartedly, and I have been appalled at the bureaucratic indecision and obstruction that has stopped landholders and land managers from hazard reduction. If you are going to do it, you must have decent fire breaks and access tracks, otherwise it is dangerous. Done by experienced, competent people, it is not a dangerous exercise at the right time of the year.

However, if we continue to sit idly by and allow this intransigent, unwise and foolish attitude to prevail, we will get a repeat of Victoria's recent fires. I have been talking to some of my parliamentary colleagues in Victoria, and they tell me that the death toll is likely to rise and that successive Victorian governments, with an obsession to appease radical, left wing environmental groups, have stood in the way of fire hazard reduction.

One of my constituents, a CFS volunteer, was injured in Victoria during these fires. A bough fell on him when he was going down a narrow track. These people went there to give their time freely, and they are hardworking community members, and this person was injured. I am delighted that he is making progress and will soon be back in South Australia. That unfortunate incident highlighted that, if people are going to go into areas, the access tracks must be wide enough so they will not be endangered by falling trees and boughs and so they can turn around and get out.

It is no good expecting people to go into areas if they cannot get out. As clear as night follows day, common sense is not prevailing. A few days ago, just after this matter, the minister put in our boxes a pamphlet saying what you could and could not do. I read through it with a great deal of interest. I found that if you have a shed, which is most likely where you would have a water tank and pump, you are allowed to clear only five metres back from it. I would not like to be standing there when I am trying to get the engine going when a fire is racing up the hill if you cannot clear more than five metres. That is nonsense.

The people who are insisting on those sorts of controls are not only dangerous, they are highly irresponsible. To put it mildly, if you called them a fool, you would be praising them. I might not know very much about lots of things, but I have had some experience at burning grass, stubble and native vegetation, and there are a number of important features that you have to understand. It worries me that over the past few years we have allowed this huge build-up to take place and we have not done anything to control it. When a fire takes place, it is going to be bloody horrendous.

We on the Natural Resources Committee heard evidence from the Mayor of Mitcham. Afterwards, when having a cup of coffee with us, he told us that some of the fire prevention officers in the Adelaide Hills councils are having great difficulty with the fools in the native vegetation office. If they want to mow along the edge of the road, they have people trying to stop them because of some rare orchid, even though there might be a paddock of them next door. That is the sort of nonsense I am talking about.

I believe it is about time this parliament gave authority to elected people, not to bureaucrats sitting in offices who have no sense of responsibility and who can duck for cover as soon as anything goes wrong. At the end of the day, if this parliament continues to allow these stupid laws to stand, those with the responsibility will have to wear what happens. It is going to happen, as sure as we are standing in this building. You have been warned, people have pleaded with you, and you continue to have this brick-wall attitude. It is a great pity that certain elements within the bureaucracy feed this guff up to people, and well-meaning people believe them—and we know it is nonsense.

It is absolute foolishness to say that a farmer cannot go out at the right time of year and cold burn 50 to 60 hectares of native vegetation. It does not do any harm. There would not be any Mallee scrub left in South Australia if burning damaged or killed it. It should be done at the right time of year and decent firebreaks should be put in. If you want to back-burn to control a fire, you have to be able to get along the break because, if the fire appliance coming behind is too close, the radiant heat is too hot. That is why you have to have 10 to 15 metres and not this obsession with five metres, which some bureaucrat dreamed up as the appropriate width. I would like to see those people who are insisting on the five metres down on the fire track when someone is trying to back-burn when a fire is coming. You would only have to take them along there once, and I would hope—even though it might not affect one or two of them—that common sense would prevail.

The motion put forward by the member is worthy of support and absolutely necessary. I believe that the Natural Resources Committee should further inquire into these matters, and I am looking forward to seeing the Mayor of Mitcham, and others, come back to give us further information. I saw what happened last year when there was a fire at Brownhill Creek. I was appalled with all the build-up of combustible material. You can drive through country areas and see the build-up on the roads where it should all be slashed. When managers and landholders want to go out and take some positive steps, they are prevented; they have these people acting foolishly and irresponsibly.

So, the document that the minister and his department cobbled together quickly after this matter raised so much public discussion—which was put in our letterboxes—leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I am most concerned that we continue to have this dog-in-the-manger attitude; that we only have to do the minimum and we have to get in the way of people and, if they give a few inches, they will then want to have a bureaucratic process in place. For god's sake, let's get on and apply common sense. We have to give people the chance to take action.

I asked the minister this question: if someone goes out and clears more than 20 metres, or five metres, around their home and shed to protect themselves, will he have his inspectors racing out there with their measuring tapes ready to prosecute them? We want to know, because we want to be ready so we can make sure that we have television cameras there to focus on them to show what fools they are.

We have had experience in the past with these people. We know what they are like. Some of them have a political agenda. We know that they have had a go at members on this side, we know they have a political agenda and we know who they are. But, instead of having a dog-in-the-manger attitude, why can't the minister put the long-term interests of the people of this state first and allow them to protect themselves and the public, and support the hardworking, diligent, competent volunteers who are doing such great work for us all? Why not make it easier for them? Why not make it that these people are not unnecessarily risking their lives. There is always a risk, but why not minimise the risk to the public and to volunteers and reduce the cost to the taxpayers and reduce the inconvenience to the communities? When there is a fire in these areas, it is a huge inconvenience. All we have to do is look at the television to see what is happening in Victoria.

I totally disagree with the member for Fisher about that person who did the right thing and got fined. Another person got into trouble for shifting rocks at the request of the local fire people so they could get there. That is the sort of stupidity that is taking place. We in South Australia should know better. We should act, we should not wait one day longer and we should put the long-term interests and the protection of the public first.

Mrs PENFOLD (Flinders) (11:30): I rise to strongly support the bill to have a joint standing committee, whose powers and functions are set out in the Parliamentary Committees Act, to inquire into and report on any proposed matter or issue concerned with bushfires and supported by this interim measure. In February 2001, we saw a fire that burnt in the SA Water reserve, Tulka and the Lincoln National Park, south of Port Lincoln.

At a 'thank you' function at Community House in Port Lincoln, I said that, while the fires had been very traumatic, with a huge loss of property and damage to the environment, fortunately there had been no loss of life. I went on to say that this was more luck than good management and that next time we could not expect to be so fortunate—and we were not.

Between the inquiry into the fire and the full implementation of the recommendations, the government changed. The Tulka fire generated at least four reports, which were very difficult to obtain. According to the Chief Executive of the Country Fire Service of South Australia, Stuart Ellis, copies would be available upon request. After a number of questions, I received a copy of one of the reports on 7 October 2005, more than four years after the Tulka fire and several months after the Wangary fire. It is shattering to know that, had all the recommendations from the Tulka fire been expeditiously put into place, possibly all the deaths and much of the devastation from the Wangary fire in 2005 could have been avoided or certainly reduced.

The coronial inquiry into the Wangary bushfires took much longer than anyone expected. One of the weaknesses picked up was the same as that identified from fighting the Tulka fire, that is, the problem of communication between crews and officers on the ground, between air crews and ground crews, and between various emergency services organisations, police, local government and private operators.

We have recently experienced yet another fire that threatened to roar into Port Lincoln. While there has been a major improvement in cooperation between the services, poor communication is still an issue that could endanger lives because that weakness has been only partially addressed.

The Coroner's recommendations are silent on what constitutes communication and how it can be delivered. Recommendation 34 proposes that local government plant suitable for use in bushfire fighting be fitted with radios connected to the government radio network. The explanatory comment notes that GRN may not necessarily be the best platform and that a separate task force had been established to put forward options.

It is now four years since the Wangary fire, and local government plant still does not have communication for use in fires—and the recent Port Lincoln fire once again illustrated this lack of communication. There is no indication of how the cost of providing GRN (or whatever form of radio contact is deemed suitable) will be met. Will it be just another cost shift by Labor from state to local government to comply with the recommendations that council plant used in firefighting be fitted with radios?

This is a pertinent time to highlight the lack of mobile phone services in my electorate. A South Australian company called Broadband Anywhere was set to install broadband services across the region, but the Labor state government refused to sign off on the deal, which was to be funded by the commonwealth government. Our mobile phone coverage (or rather the lack of it) causes considerable angst. Last Friday, I travelled the 400 kilometres to Ceduna, returning to Port Lincoln on the Saturday, all without adequate phone coverage. Many of the remote homes, communities, schools and school bus routes do not have mobile phone coverage. Anyone who has had anything at all to do with mobile phones knows the advantage they can be in an emergency.

Mobile phone coverage, as a subsidiary form of communication in the overall management in a large bushfire, is life-saving, yet all Eyre Peninsula schools were closed for a day last week, leaving many children home alone, with possibly only one or no parent, and without adequate communication in case of an emergency.

Recommendation 14 recommends that protocols be developed relating to, among a number of things, appropriate radio contact with private firefighting units. The recommendation has been deemed complete, yet the explanation gives no information on how this will actually work, particularly in the remote areas of Eyre Peninsula. The explanation states that the protocols were used in the December 2007 Kangaroo Island bushfires. Do the protocols work as effectively in hilly terrain such as that burnt in the 2005 Wangary bushfire—terrain also encountered in the Adelaide Hills and in the current Victorian disaster? Will owners of private units that do not have the required radio communication be barred from fighting alongside their neighbours and friends?

I was amazed that despite the 2003 recommendations from the Tulka fire that HF radios be provided to Kevin Warren's planes so that the pilots could talk to the volunteer services on the ground, in 2005 they still had to compete with the public on the open radio system.

Once again, despite the lack of support from the government and its officers, Kevin Warren and his pilots and planes fought the Wangary fire when officially sanctioned planes were again unavailable until the crisis was over. It was not an official fire ban day, despite a hot north wind, but unfortunately fires do not abide by the official rules.

Later in 2005, I had a relative of one of the firefighters killed in the Wangary fire contact my office in great distress when he heard the Hon. Pat Conlon say on radio that water bombers were no good.

Incredibly, exactly the same scenario as happened at Wangary played out a few days before the start of the fire ban season in late 2006 and, again, not on a fire ban day. Again, we were fortunate that the fire was controlled, with Kevin Warren's aerial help, with little loss of property and no lives lost. By then, despite having been told that aerial bombers would make no difference, two official planes were to be stationed at the Port Lincoln airport, but the planes were only to be in Port Lincoln on official fire ban days, so they were not there at that time.

Fires do not happen just on fire ban days. There is no recognition in the recommendations, or in any government statements, of the great benefit that a swift response has in controlling a fire and therefore lessening its impact. Local planes can be in the air in a fraction of the time that it takes to get a plane from Adelaide to Port Lincoln.

This initial response can significantly reduce the impact and advance of a fire, especially if followed up by the larger water bombers, as it was in the recent Port Lincoln fire when, as well as the two aerial water bombers now stationed in Port Lincoln, another six planes were quickly brought over, including one large bomber.

Somewhere along the line the government has changed its tune, possibly when it changed its Minister for Emergency Services. We are at last seeing some of the billions of dollars of windfall revenue that this government has been fortunate to receive being put back into safety measures for the state, such as aerial firefighting capacity, which Labor's previous minister for emergency services disparaged.

In regional areas most of our emergency services are operated by volunteers at minimal cost to the government. However, local knowledge, even that of these volunteers, has been disparaged in the past, and it is therefore heartening to see that recommendations 15 to 18 refer to working with, rather than against, local people and their accumulated experience.

A sum of $580,000, or $2.317 million over four years, is mentioned in no fewer than nine recommendations to deal with the cost of added staffing and compliance issues, principally when working with landowners and/or occupiers. Is the repetition of this funding meant to suggest that more is being done, and more funding spent, than is actually the case?

Incident management teams are given the responsibility of implementing the recommendations, with a proposal that the position of landowner liaison officer within the team be created. Is this another burden that some volunteer has to shoulder? After all, $580,000 for training volunteers across the state to fulfil these recommendations can scarcely be described as generous.

I understand that currently there is a government drive to reduce emergency services costs, with the pressure on the volunteers, and with the SES being described as a social club, which I can assure members that they definitely are not

My electorate has the most national parks and reserves of any electorate in the state, with over 40 per cent covered with native vegetation; hence native vegetation is a concern, especially when it comes to fires. Recommendation 33 proposes a 'code of practice for the management of native vegetation to reduce the impact of bushfire'. Perhaps if it had been given some urgency it may have been in place and therefore lessened the December 2007 Kangaroo Island bushfire.

One of the provisions is for wide firebreaks and access roads to provide more effective options for controlling fires. Another, is the use of cold burns over portions of the areas over a period of years so that flammable matter is reduced.

I am struck by the number of times it is suggested in the recommendations that various actions be required of local government. Nowhere is there any mention of added funding for local government to undertake any of these proposals, despite frequent mentions of funding for the state component of proposed actions.

Recommendation 7 is one of these, suggesting that rural councils appoint full-time officers for bushfire prevention. The explanation states that the 2008-09 budget provides funding of $414,000 over four years for an emergency management officer to be based in SES to work with local government to progress the above approach. If the government was serious about fire prevention it would allocate a similar amount to local governments since LGA compliance costs would be—

Time expired.

Ms BREUER (Giles) (11:40): It is always interesting to speak after the member for Flinders, who must have to work 42 hours a day to get everything done that she says she does. Her speeches are always very well resourced.

I probably support what the member for Davenport is proposing as I do not see any issue with having an inquiry into bushfires. However, I point out that the Environment, Resources and Development Committee prepared an extensive report, which was tabled on 28 November 2005 after the terrible Eyre Peninsula bushfires. It was entitled 'The Eyre Peninsula Bushfire and Native Vegetation Report' and we did a lot of work on it.

I hate to see things being doubled up. If you are going to do something, take into account all these previous reports and inquiries, because there is a wealth of information out there. We found that that was the case back in 2005, and there has been a lot more since. We need to pull together some of this information. There is a wealth of information out there which is available, and I would not want to see too much time spent on this.

With bushfires we need money to be able to prevent them. Bushfire is a terrible thing. My sympathies lie with the people in Victoria, as they do with those affected by the Eyre Peninsula bushfires, with which I was directly involved back in 2005. It is a terrible thing. I do not know the answer, except spending more money, but we do not have the sort of money that is probably required to resolve the issues.

You can hold as many inquiries as you like, but the fact of the matter is: what do we do on the day to prevent these fires? Whilst in some ways I support the motion for this inquiry, we need to pull together a lot of the information to see what sense we can make out of it. We then need to get practical, as there is no point in reporting on these things if nothing happens as a result.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:43): I rise to support this important motion. I commend the member for Davenport for moving it. No doubt he felt very sensitive during the Victorian fires—as did we all—particularly as he has a large section of the Adelaide Hills in his electorate. I understand that this motion is in tandem with a private member's bill that he also has before the house, and I am happy to support both.

The aim of the motion and the bill is for parliament to take a pro-active role with legislation in relation to bushfires. I note what the member for Giles just said, and I hope we take a non-political look at this issue, particularly after what we have just been through.

As previously noted in this place by the member for Davenport, there are many legislative areas with which parliament deals relating to bushfire preparedness, including: planning, infrastructure, funding for emergency services, native vegetation issues, education programs, local council and departmental and agency responsibilities—and the list goes on. In the wake of the Victorian bushfire tragedy it is clear that the ferocity of bushfires in Australia is increasing, and consequently we need to be more prepared.

Enabling the Natural Resources Committee (until a standing committee can take over from 2010, as outlined in another bill that the member for Davenport has before the house) to investigate the wide range of issues associated with bushfires I believe is a logical and reasonable step for this parliament to take, without politics. We have experienced loss and tragedy as a result of bushfire in this state, although not to the extent of the disaster in Victoria. We must do everything possible to try to prevent such devastating fires occurring in the first instance and, if they do, make sure that we are as prepared as we can be in order to minimise the impact.

I support the motion moved by the member for Davenport to set up a standing committee on bushfires. It is a good idea and should always be there because, as other speakers have said, in 12 months' time we will forget what happened in Victoria. We have forgotten what happened with the Tulka fires. If we have a standing committee, it will report regularly to the house on what is happening. During the debate on the fire condolence motion I expressed my sympathies—and I do so again—to not only all those people who lost loved ones but also those with friends and relatives still missing.

It was an emotive debate on that day. As I said then, I had a bad experience with fire when I was five and for the whole of my life I have been bushfire aware. Every year I slash or cool burn strategic areas around our home and farm to protect us on extreme fire days. State government and local councils have to do the same, especially where the fire risk is high along railway lines. One only has to watch trains at night to see the sparks coming off the wheels, particularly when the brakes are applied or bearings are worn. I drive around country areas every weekend—as I will this weekend—and I am amazed to see high growth alongside the road and careless drivers throwing out cigarettes butts; I hope they are not country drivers. People chuck their cigarette butts out the window and, when there is growth on the side of the road, it is a disaster waiting to happen.

It is irresponsible of councils to allow that to happen. It is the responsibility of both the council and the adjoining landowner to minimise high growth alongside highways so the risk is reduced. I am guilty—and I put it on the record—of slashing down native vegetation. I have done it for years, particularly alongside the highway—and I will show members the location. There is a track between the highway and the paddock on the northern side of our farmhouse, and every year I go along that track with my slasher to cut down all the native vegetation regrowth to ensure that track is always clear. It is the only firebreak between the highway and my home. The track is only about eight feet wide, maybe three metres, and I ensure it is always clear. I ensure that the regrowth is trimmed every year. If I did not do it for two or three years the track would not be there, so I do that. I am probably guilty—and now it is on the record.

On extreme fire days when semitrailers go along the highway, I know that, if they happen to throw a spark or blow a tyre and light up the bush, there is a slim chance I can get there to stop the fire from jumping the road into the farm. As a result of my experience with fire, I am amazed what will burn when it is driven by a very hot, gale force, northerly wind. Even paint on steel posts will burn, if it is hot enough. We have to promote anything we can in relation to cool burning. I have been accused over the years of being a bit of a firebug. I light up the place around my house, usually about late October. I go around the house with a little firelighter to get rid of the growth. It only burns the top bit, not underneath. It gets rid of the top; it gets rid of the wild oats and the barley grass, etc., to reduce the risk of fire. Of course, I usually do it at dusk so there is no smoke, but, of course, you can see the flames, and I always inform our neighbours.

Certainly, I think it is important that we agree with this motion. As MPs we must change the mentality of the Native Vegetation Council and the department. If we do not act, we will see a repeat of these bushfires. If we do not, we all stand condemned. I support the motion of the member for Davenport to set up a standing committee, and I commend the honourable member on bringing this initiative to the house. I support the motion.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:49): I support the member for Davenport's motion. I ask that the government consider strongly supporting this motion. After what we have seen in the past two or three weeks, and what I myself saw on Kangaroo Island in December 2007, if people are confused, frustrated and annoyed by lack of action, we have to ask ourselves in this place what we will do about it.

As the member for Giles said, people are fed up with reports. They are sick of talk and they want action. However, this is the place where we can change it. The government is fond of saying that we should act in a bipartisan way more often. I say to the government today that this is a perfect opportunity. A huge area has been wiped out in Victoria, with over 200 lives lost. We had 250,000 acres (or 100,000 hectares) lost on Kangaroo Island in 2007, plus the very sad loss of Joel Riley in those fires.

A lot of this nonsense goes back to the introduction of the Native Vegetation Act and the bureaucracy that has grown out of that. There were aspects of the Native Vegetation Act which were probably required, and I support the retention of native vegetation in areas where it is needed and all that has gone on around that, but we have had a bureaucracy that has grown out of stupidity, in my view, that has allowed these situations to eventuate. As the members for Kavel, Davenport and Heysen, I and others know, next time the Adelaide Hills go up we will be sitting here and saying, 'Woe is me,' and the government of the day—whether it is the current government, us or whoever—can say, 'Oh, well, we've done this and we've done that. We've supplied helicopters and done this, that and everything else.' That is not much excuse for lives lost and property destroyed.

The Natural Resources Committee is an ideal committee to look into this and adjudicate on the activities of the Native Vegetation Authority, and there has been some move to sort that out. There are bureaucrats who, in my view, have absolutely no idea of how to deal with the bush. I recently heard the CEO of the department of environment, Mr Holmes, on the radio saying, 'You need lots of skill, lots of training, and lots of this and lots of that before you burn scrub.' Well, there is a highly trained group of people out there and it is called the farming community. Those people have been doing it forever and a day, and we are losing those skills because of the nonsense being perpetuated these days by the bureaucrats.

Mr Holmes and I sat on the CFS board, and I have a good deal of time for some aspects of his capacity and capabilities. However, when he gets on the radio and says that you need to work up the skills, he is talking absolute poppycock, as far as I am concerned. I will tell members that you need common sense and practical experience to get out there and deal with these issues, and the Natural Resources Committee can look into that. Cold burning has been talked about. I heard the member for Fisher's contribution and disagree with many of the statements he made.

What we are turning into is a nanny state, where all the bureaucrats know best, the government knows best and we do not know anything. Well, we do know a few things, and I will give an example of that. During the Kangaroo Island fires, a local farmer, John Symons, ran the Western River fire—called the Solly fire. He has been farming there for 30, 40 or 50 years—longer than he cares to remember. He took control and he burnt back and put in the breaks, and that was the first fire to come under control and be dealt with and put out of the way. He was the one who did it. We had other fires where people were running around in circles trying to work out what to do next. We have a host of nervous Nellies in the CFS and the department. They are not game to move because they fear retribution under the Native Vegetation Act. There is only one way to fight fire and that is with fire, and the Natural Resources Committee can look into that.

I will talk about the Kangaroo Island fires because I am very familiar with that area, which is part of my electorate. There was no necessity to have 250,000 acres of scrub burnt out. If there had been some common-sense practicalities as put forward by Mr Euan Ferguson, the chief officer of the CFS, we would not have had that situation develop. I was presiding member of the CFS for five years and when I left there were 17,000 volunteers. We are now down to 11,000. Why do people not get involved? Because they are fed up to the back teeth with the nonsense. Then we have these letter writers who go on and on saying we need a Canadair aircraft. Well, I will tell members that the Canadair aircraft is next to useless in South Australia. Canada has water in lakes that they can pick up. The only water available in South Australia is in the sea, by and large. It is a nonsense for those people to go on like that.

My electorate is extremely vulnerable and, indeed, only on Saturday I mentioned the fact that very shortly, if we are not careful, we could have a fire sweep into Victor Harbor and people who choose to live in the scrub could be burnt out badly. I support the motion.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (11:55): I am pleased to speak in support of the motion brought to the house by the member for Davenport. We need to understand that bushfires form part of the history of South Australia. If one looks back through the pages of the state's history, one sees that big, devastating fires through those decades have formed part of our state's history. I had not been born at that stage, but certainly I am aware of the Black Sunday fires in the 1950s, we had Ash Wednesday in the 1980s and then, two or three weeks ago, we had the devastation of Black Saturday in Victoria.

Significant other fires in the state have been highlighted by members. We have had the Tulka and Wangary fires, as well as the fires on Kangaroo Island about which the member for Finniss has already quite clearly articulated. I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about some specific areas in the electorate of Kavel which I regard as really high fire risk areas and on which, I think, the government and the departments that manage those areas should focus. An area through Carey Gully has quite dense scrub, and if a fire came up over the hills through Summertown and Uraidla, that area, or even to the south through Crafers and Piccadilly, and got into that scrub it would act as an area to push the fire out further into the hills and threaten townships such as Lobethal, Woodside and communities such as that.

I visited a constituent only last week at Oakbank who was extremely fearful of the threat that a bushfire may pose on that particular township, and I am working through that issue specifically with the fire prevention officer of the Adelaide Hills Council. Also, an area, which is actually part of Forestry SA land just on the outer perimeter of the Lenswood district and which is located along a particular road called Fox Creek Road, had previously been planted with pine trees as part of the harvesting process of pine in the state, but that was burnt out in Ash Wednesday. The government at that time decided to plant it up with eucalypts to provide some stability to the structure of the soil.

However, those trees are growing up (they would be, I suppose, four or five metres tall now) and that presents a particular fire risk. The government and the department should do more to ensure fire safety in that area. I am highlighting these two specific areas, but many more in my electorate need addressing in terms of cold burning and measures such as that to provide a higher level of bushfire safety, particularly in the electorate I represent.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

Mrs GERAGHTY: Mr Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT