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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
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PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES (BUSHFIRES COMMITTEE) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (10:37): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (10:37): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: This is again a bill that I moved prior to the election. I am re-moving it, in the same form as I moved it previously. The reason I am moving this bill is that I believe the public and the parliament of South Australia would be well served by having a standing committee that looks at all matters relating to bushfire. I know we are at the start of July and it is a cold, wet winter but come summer we all will be focused on bushfire matters—there is nothing surer.

The history of bushfire throughout Australia is very simple. There always have been fires and there always will be fires. When there is a really bad fire the government of the day expresses great sympathy. Quite rightly, it throws resources into helping those in need as a result of the fire and to rebuild communities. I do not criticise governments for doing that at all.

If it is a really bad fire the government will set up an inquiry, the inquiry will make recommendations and, at that point, governments of all colours have fallen down; that is, once an inquiry reports it is open to question how many of the recommendations are actually implemented and how well the parliament tracks the implementation of the recommendations.

I do declare that I live in an area and represent an area that are high bushfire risk. My local CFS brigade tells me that Mitcham Hills is one of the worst, most-urbanised bushfire areas in the world. I believe the parliament through its membership over decades has become more urbanised. There are fewer regional seats and more city seats. I think the parliament has become deskilled in understanding issues relating to bushfire—and that is no disrespect to the parliament. I think it is just a matter of course because more people in the city have not lived, breathed and dealt with bushfire in their backyard.

The issue for me is this: I think that the parliament has a duty to the public to make sure that we are the best prepared we can be for bushfire, for the prevention of bushfire, the reaction to bushfire and the rebuilding after bushfire. And the only way we can be best prepared, in my view, is to have a parliamentary committee oversighting it so that we can keep track of worldwide developments and keep quizzing the agencies to make sure that we are as best planned as we can be. That would hold the agencies to account to make sure that our preparation is the best it can be. It would also educate the parliament about the most current issues, whatever they may be, at the then time about bushfire issues.

The parliament may say, and some members may say, 'Well, the parliament doesn't need a stand-alone committee into one topic.' We normally have broad committees, such as economic and finance, or we have natural resources. Other parliaments have taken this step to have a standing committee into things such as road safety, and they look at cross-agency issues in relation to road safety. I say that South Australia, given its high urbanisation of some areas, the tragedies that have occurred in the electorate of Flinders (around the Port Lincoln area over time) and fires in the South-East from time to time, is a high bushfire state.

I would put road safety and bushfires on at least equal footing—if not bushfires possibly even on a higher footing, given where I live. I think that there is a solid case for the parliament to put in place a standing committee on bushfires because it is a complex issue. It goes to public education; it goes to building design; it goes to transport and evacuation routes; it goes to the funding and training of emergency services; it goes to relationship with media and the media's role in times of emergency in bushfire; and it goes to planning issues about zoning and where you can build and what you can build.

Virtually every agency in government touches on bushfire response or bushfire planning in some degree. It goes to the question of safe havens. Is the government going to nominate safe havens? Should we, as a policy, nominate safe havens or should we not nominate safe havens? What is the role of local government? Bushfire is a very complex issue, and while it may be a topic that is narrow within government, across every agency it is a very broad issue. Now that the election is out of the way and the government is looking through this bill through a different prism, a different light, if you like, because an election is not imminent, I hope that the government can relook at its position and see that there is actually merit in having this committee set up, because I think the bushfire issue is an important one. It will not go away.

Are we really going to wait and have a press conference after the next major bushfire, saying, 'We're going to have an inquiry into why this didn't occur, why the communications network didn't work,' or whatever, when we could have done all that planning before the disaster? We could have probably ticked off a lot of the problems and solved a lot of the issues prior to the fire happening. I think that we should be proactive, not reactive. That is the motivation for this bill. With those few words, I seek the support of the house in due course.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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