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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: MOUNT LOFTY RANGES FIRE MANAGEMENT

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (11:24): I move:

That the 89th report of the committee, on Prescribed Burning Fire Management in the Mount Lofty Ranges—Fact Finding Visit 7 June 2013, be noted.

The Natural Resources Committee has maintained an interest in fire management in the wake of the 2009 inquiry into bushfires. This inquiry produced an interim report, tabled in November 2009, followed by a final report, tabled in July 2011. Since then, the Natural Resources Committee has requested regular updates on bushfires and undertaken a number of fact finding visits. A previous fact finding visit to Mitcham Hills on 17 February 2012 with the member for Davenport considered areas of high fire risk.

The committee prepared a report based on the evidence collected that day, which was tabled in September 2012. The committee received a further briefing at Parliament House from officers of the Fire Management Branch of the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources on 12 April, where the committee members were invited to view a prescribed burn. While conditions did not eventuate to allow members to visit the actual burn, members were able to visit the Black Hill Fire Operations Centre and view sites recently burnt and subject to future prescribed burns in and around the Cleland Conservation Park on 7 June 2013.

The aim of prescribed burning is to reduce fuel loads in the parks, reserves and other public lands. Members heard that, in recent years, DEWNR has been largely successful in reducing the incidence of large destructive fires by implementing a schedule of prescribed burns that build a mosaic of vegetation of differing age and density within a whole-of-landscape context. This mosaic reduces the chance of a bushfire spreading to neighbouring residential areas and farmland. Reduced fuel loads lower the intensity of a bushfire and also the likelihood of spot fires, which are caused by embers igniting bark and thick understorey vegetation. The mosaic pattern burns also benefit wildlife, stimulating new growth and producing a range of different habitats.

Committee members were impressed with the knowledge and experience of the department officers responsible for preparing fire management plans for the state's eight NRM regions and implementing the prescribed burning program. It is acknowledged that, even with appropriate safeguards, some mistakes could be made and prescribed burning operations could go wrong. Some burns have clearly broken through control lines; however, it was clear that in the majority of cases (97 per cent, we were told) prescribed burns were successful in reducing bushfire risk and increasing biodiversity.

Members heard that some residents are opposed to prescribed burns because they consider the ecological and aesthetic impacts to be greater than the benefits of reduced fire risk. The department has responded to such opposition through community engagement, the success of which was demonstrated to the committee members at Crafers West, where initial opposition was extinguished, so to speak, once residents witnessed the benefits of a textbook low intensity prescribed burn. This burn cleaned up the country, left native vegetation intact, increased biodiversity and removed bark, weeds and excess fuel loads. More of these highly visible demonstrations seem certain to improve community acceptance of prescribed burning over time.

I would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution of the members during these years: the member for Frome, the member for Torrens, the member for Little Para, the member for Mount Gambier, the member for Stuart, the Hon. Robert Brokenshire MLC, the Hon. John Dawkins MLC, the Hon. Russell Wortley MLC and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars MLC. We have all worked well together and I continue to look forward to the spirit of cooperation that our committee has.

I would also like to make special mention of the member for Davenport, the member for Fisher and the member for Bragg, who have shown great interest in this area and have not only come to some of the fact-finding visits that we have undertaken but also offered a lot of information and advice to our committee. I would particularly like to thank, on behalf of the members of the Natural Resources Committee, the parliamentary staff for their assistance. I commend this report to the house.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (11:29): I am pleased to be able to rise in the house this morning to speak to the report of the Natural Resources Committee, entitled 'Prescribed Burning Fire Management in the Mount Lofty Ranges—Fact Finding Visit 7 June 2013'. I understand that the committee has taken interest in fire management since 2009—some four years ago. Prior to discussing the contents of the report and making some comments in relation to the conclusions and the like, it goes to the point that we have previously debated in this house—and it is before the house at the moment—in relation to the establishment of a natural disasters parliamentary committee that the member for Davenport has brought to the parliament.

The Natural Resources Committee has been dealing with this issue for four years and prior to that as the chairman (the member for Ashford) has indicated. It goes to the fact that there is a real need to establish a separate committee—the natural disasters committee—as pointed out by the member for Davenport. This side has strongly argued in favour of that proposition, given that bushfire management and the risk (and all of the associated issues that go with that) is a major issue each and every year that this state faces.

Particularly in the electorate of Kavel (which I continue to have the privilege to represent in this place), every year bushfire risk and management comes to the fore around late spring when things are starting to dry off and the weather is getting warmer. When grasses and vegetation start to dry off, it comes to people's attention that bushfire management, risk and control and all of those associated issues are very important.

Perusing the report, it appears that there was quite a reasonable level of investigation and it covers many topics. The report is 42 pages long. The most important aspect of these reports are the conclusions that committees come to in relation to undertaking these investigations and tabling a report here in this place. In terms of prescribed burning—cold burning, cool burning or whatever you like to call it—I think it is a vitally important initiative.

As the chairman of the committee (the member for Ashford) has stated and advised the house, the department and those agencies responsible for these actions do it in a mosaic fashion. They do not go into a particular national park or conservation park (or whatever the public land is) with a blanket approach where they burn 1,000 hectares or 500 hectares in one hit. In some areas that is probably not a bad approach, but we are not here to discuss that today.

I understand the science behind mosaic burning and I have had some briefings from the department over the years about it so I understand the science. However, we are not necessarily convinced—and the member for Bragg raises this issue as the shadow minister for emergency services on a fairly regular basis—that enough is achieved in relation to the percentage of public land that is burnt in this manner.

The member for Bragg may like to make some further comments—I leave that up to her if she so wishes—but I do hear the member for Bragg regularly raise these issues where there is not enough taking place on the actual physical area of land. But it is a measure to reduce risk, and we accept that. It is proven that where there has been what is called 'a good hot burn', where climatic conditions and the state of the vegetation are such that you get a good hot burn, and the level of fuel is reduced significantly, that these are valuable measures to reduce the risk.

I have looked through the report and I have noticed some examples of where controlled burns have taken place in some of the parks, and made a comparison to the reduction in fuel load where the prescribed burning has taken place, compared with where there has not been any significant fire or fuel reduction measure in the same park for many years, since Ash Wednesday in 1983, and I noted with concern that there is an estimate of 25 tonnes of material per hectare.

I think it is concerning that there is that level of remaining fuel load in these parks in the hills, in one of the highest bushfire risk areas in the world—not just in the state or the country but in the world. The Mount Lofty Ranges is regarded as one of the highest bushfire risk areas in the world, and we see those devastating fires that take place in California and in the southern parts of Europe as well—in North America and in Europe—but we here in South Australia face a similar level of risk.

I refer to the conclusions, particularly in 3.2 entitled 'Landholder responsibility to reduce fuel loads on their properties'. This is a very important aspect of this whole issue. I attended a briefing last sitting week together with some of my colleagues, which was hosted by the Hon. Michelle Lensink in the other place. We had the Chief Officer of the CFS, Greg Nettleton, another senior officer from the CFS, Leigh Miller, and other officers from the CFS came and briefed us and it was very informative—some good information was communicated to us particularly in relation to what landowners should be doing to reduce the risk to their properties from a fire event.

I have lived in the Adelaide Hills pretty much all of my life. There was a period of time where I was transferred to different parts of the state with my employment but I have pretty much lived in the Adelaide Hills all my life. I have witnessed firsthand the devastation that Ash Wednesday brought on the various communities, particularly the Adelaide Hills community. I really think the whole issue of communicating to the community the need for them to take some responsibility is an ongoing process, and I do not think that work will ever end.

The report refers to this at 3.4—'Advice to prospective purchasers of property in bushfire danger areas', because properties turn over, and are bought and sold in the Adelaide Hills district, and new residents move in, and it is understandable that they do not necessarily fully appreciate the risks that are before them in relation to bushfire threats. We see an example of that with the further developments taking place in and around Mount Barker, and the local CFS brigade has raised some concerns in relation to the capacity and ability to manage emergency services events as a consequence of the further development in that township.

Time expired.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: It is helpful that members behave like a soccer crowd advising the referee that the time is up. Thank you. The member for Bragg.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:39): Thank you, Mr Referee. I rise to speak on the Prescribed Burning Fire Management in the Mount Lofty Ranges Fact Finding Visit report from the Natural Resources Committee. I thank the Chair and her committee for the work they have undertaken on this important matter.

In relation to a number of the conclusions that the committee has reached, I applaud the continued expectation of landholder responsibility to reduce fuel loads on properties. Just this week I had a letter of complaint from someone in my electorate, which covers a part of the Mount Lofty region, that yet again this year a massive fuel load has been accrued on a property adjacent to this particular constituent. The owner of that property does not reside there. There is no effort on an annual basis to clear it, so she has to go through the painful process of having to call on the local council representatives to issue the notices and so on.

The expansion of the capacity to be able to issue notices is there and available, and it ought to be utilised. Indeed, the extension of the definition of what is flammable vegetation, from a briefing we recently had from the CFS here at the parliament, confirms that there is opportunity to deal with that. I urge those who are responsible to get on and do it. It seems, from what we hear in feedback, that some of the councils do not have the personnel or the funding to do it.

We have gone through this absurd period, sadly, where the NRM was taking on responsibilities here and not the council, not just for the prescriptive regulation but also for the undertaking of responsibility of duties. It developed to a situation where nobody was taking responsibility. I think there has been a bit of a turnaround. I applaud those agencies that are doing the work in this regard and commend the committee for endorsing a continuation of it.

In regard to the development issues and the expansion of allowing persons or their property to really claw into the native vegetation regions, the dangers are obvious. To be frank, it concerned me to read in this report that some of the information that was given was from people who rejected the concept of prescribed burning, which was the management tool under consideration by this committee. They gave evidence suggesting that this was not an effective tool. Frankly, if people who take that view want to live in this area as residents and therefore do not responsibly manage their own properties then, rather than just getting high insurance and making everyone else's insurance premiums around them unaffordable, they should get out and not live there.

I am sick of reading in reports—and this is no reflection on the committee—that there are people who are presenting, in direct contradiction of what is clearly the position of even the departments of environment, primary industries and our emergency services people, who understand the benefit of prescribed burning.

Let me say this as an alternative: if that person or persons wants to clear their property of fuel, which is the third component of any fire opportunity and the damage that it can cause, as was explained to us again by the CFS this year—fire, fuel, heat and, of course, air are all necessary for the purposes of the combustion and damage that is caused as a result of these fires. If these people take the view that doing a prescribed burn has no benefit in the management of fire and they want to peddle that idea, then let them go out there with a wheelbarrow and pick up every leaf and rake up every stick. I do not mind, they can do that if they like, but they still have an obligation to clean up those properties. The agencies that are providing for the supervision and regulation of this will have my support.

Next week, I think on 19 November, I am meeting with the Minister for Environment for my annual pests and bushfire management meeting, and I look forward to it. Over the years that I have been the representative in this area, there have been quite a few different ministers. They have changed just about every year. Nevertheless, I value that, because I like to get a full briefing in the minister's presence by the agencies as to what they have provided for in the way of proposed prescribed burning (cold burning, as it is colloquially known) in their fire management plans and what they have done. They give me a list of what they propose to do in the autumn and spring seasons, which are the major periods for prescribed burning, and then what they have done.

Last year, the head of the Department of Environment provided me with a list suggesting that they had done over 100 per cent of their prescribed burns. This looked impressive. I thought, 'This is very clever. How can you do more than 100 per cent of what you have planned to do?' The answer was that one of their prescribed burns got out of control so they had actually burnt 1,000 hectares instead of 10 hectares. They then used that blowout as the means for their final determination that they had done 105 per cent or 106 per cent of their total prescribed burn obligation.

Do they think I came down in the last shower? Do they think I cannot read and I cannot understand that that is just a total distortion of the fact? If they are giving that sort of rubbish, that sort of report, not just to me as a member of parliament but also to a minister to account for what they are doing, that minister, in my view, needs to take control of that situation. If I was a minister in that position, I would not put up with it, and no minister should have to. Certainly, as a member of parliament, if I get dished up that sort of rubbish, I will not accept it.

It is an important role and there is demonstrable scientific benefit for this. I will not accept being dished up these sorts of excuses every year for not complying with the plan and not doing the job they are supposed to do. It is only a tiny piece of the total public and private area that needs to be administered and for them to undertake these prescribed burns, and it undermines all the good work that our people in the emergency services do and the departments who provide educative work and alerts to the people who live in these areas.

Last week, at Norton Summit, the CFS conducted a program again. I think about 100 people came along. It was a very informative program and good for new young people. There is a new couple from South Africa that has just moved into the district, and he was there to learn about what he needed to do. It was excellent. The biggest downfall that I see of these occasions is that the people who I think need to have a bit of education do not turn up to the meetings. It is the good people who go along and learn, and that is great, but I shudder to think of all the others sitting at home in their weed-infested gardens, or whatever, who should be at those meetings and should be understanding what their responsibility is.

I mention that, for the purposes of our agencies getting the full benefit of what they do in an educative role, it is important that there is a rigorous and robust implementation of the regulatory system and there must be a direct application of what they are doing in the prescribed burning, which is a demonstrably important fire management tool. If ministers are served up (as I have been in the past, as a member of parliament) data which is just completely misrepresentative of what is actually going on, then they need to be asking some serious questions about that and they would have my support in requiring that that be done.

Good luck to those out there who think that they have covered themselves for the forthcoming season. Those who are in a vulnerable situation should be ready. They might be young, aged, invalided or in a circumstance that requires them to have extra support if they are living or visiting in that region.

The people who just will not accept the advice that is repeated again in this committee, will not take responsibility for their own properties, will not sign up to the prescribed burn and/or clean up in the wheelbarrow—I give them the option of that—and take this head-in-the-sand, blinkered view that they are in some way not accountable for what they have to do for themselves, their families and neighbours and just live in this blind ignorance should get out and find themselves an apartment in some other place where they are not going to have that responsibility and can leave their neighbours in shocking danger, with the clean-up of the mess and protecting their property, and others, and in a position where they may not ever get insurance again and be covered. To those people, good luck for this forthcoming season.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (11:50): I rise to support the report from the Natural Resources Committee on prescribed burning. I am a member of the CFS and my family owns a farm between Kangarilla and Meadows on the boundary of Kuitpo, so I am a very keen supporter of prescribed burning, but I will go further than that: I am a very keen supporter of fuel reduction generally.

I remember in my early days in the CFS that, as part of our training, we would go out and light up along the roadsides to reduce the fuel load. We would burn off patches of scrub in the areas around the back of Aberfoyle Park and Flagstaff Hill, and up through Clarendon and Chandlers Hill, because we knew that by burning it off in a controlled fashion we were going to reduce the fuel load and reduce the intensity of the fire, if a fire were to come, and provide firebreaks as well.

I draw everybody's attention to a couple of things. They should go out and buy Bill Gammage's book, The Biggest Estate on Earth, and read what Bill Gammage has to say about the history of the natural management of our bush by the Aboriginal people. I heard Bill on the radio the other day saying during an interview that 'a fire a day keeps bushfires away'. As evidenced by the early paintings—we did not have cameras in those days—from the early settlers, we did not have the thick scrub, the thick bush that we have nowadays.

We had open parklands almost, and the fires that were lit then every day by Aboriginal people were a way of reducing the fuel load and so reducing the damage that was done when fires were started by natural causes, such as lightning. Most of the native bush in Australia has developed to be resistant to fire; in fact, some of it actually needs fire to propagate. That bush was then stimulated by fire, not killed off by the fire.

Let's not forget that just 10 days ago we had that scare up in the Adelaide Hills at Aldgate. If you drive along the freeway, you will see all the crowns of the trees there browning right off. Even in the relative cool of November, when a fire gets going with the leaf litter that is there—because there has been no prescribed burning or controlled burning or training by the CFS in those areas because they do not feel they can nowadays—it does a lot of damage. Reading pages 6 and 7 of the report from the committee just reinforces the fact that the fuel load, the burnable material that is there, is horrendous in most cases.

In the Adelaide Hills, there is up to 30 tonnes per hectare. In normal understorey, where there is no accumulation over many years of leaf litter, sticks, twigs and other things, it is about three to four tonnes per hectare. Then you add on a very modest seven centimetres of leaf litter and you add another seven tonnes per hectare, so you are up to around 10 to 11 tonnes per hectare of fuel load. That is fairly moderate compared with what we are seeing at the moment, as evidenced in this report which says that we have, in some areas of the Mount Lofty Ranges, up to 30 tonnes per hectare of fuel.

That fuel is going to then provide enough energy to produce flames that can be up to 30 metres high—that is as high as the inside of this chamber. The radiant heat from that is enormous. The larger and longer-lasting embers that are produced by those sorts of fires will travel for many kilometres in the right winds and cause spot fires, so we do need to look at what we are doing with managing our bush and managing these burns.

We have to make sure these burns are managed because, as the member for Bragg has said—and we have seen the evidence—some of these prescribed burns are getting away and causing uncontrolled fires to break out into private property and into other areas of government land that should not be burnt in an uncontrolled way. We need to make sure it is done properly, but burning of the scrub and the roadsides as a training tool for the CFS is very useful. I want to see it come back.

I want to see the CFS be able to go out there and use it. I trust the members of the Country Fire Service not to go out there and just napalm the joint. They are going to go out there and do things in a controlled way. They are going to reduce the fuel load and make the area safe so that when they have to go and do their job—when other people are running away from the fires and they are having to go in and fight the fires—they can do it in a way that is going to reduce the danger they have to face.

The need to make sure that everybody who lives in the Adelaide Hills is aware of the dangers of bushfires is no more paramount than currently. This morning I was looking at some of the roadside vegetation around the family farm at Meadows and phalaris is coming up a metre high on the roadsides. It is just horrendous. I will finish by saying that on Thursday 21 November at 7pm at the Meadows Hotel, Horse SA is providing a horse owner's bushfire survival planning workshop.

I encourage anybody who wants to get a bit more education from the Country Fire Service, horse owners and Horse SA to come along to nights like that and others that are being held throughout the Adelaide Hills and country areas before the bushfire season hits us because, as evidenced by the events in Sydney, once it gets away a nasty bushfire is going to cause a lot of physical and emotional damage.

Fortunately in Sydney we did not see any loss of life but we have seen that here in South Australia. It is a very good report. I recommend it to everybody and I look forward to the government acting on these reports by allowing not only the department to carry out more prescribed burns but also the CFS.

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (11:56): I thank members for their contribution. I know many members in this chamber would like to speak on this very important issue.

Motion carried.

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