HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-11-27 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Parliamentary Committees

NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: BUSHFIRE PREPAREDNESS

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (11:05): I move:

That the 19th report of the committee, on Bushfire Preparedness of Properties in Bushfire Risk Areas, be noted.

On 3 September 2013, the Natural Resources Committee was approached by the Minister for Emergency Services, the member for Napier, to consider the proposal that properties in bushfire risk areas should be subject to bushfire safety inspections at the time of sale. This is similar to a proposal considered, but not adopted, by the City of Mitcham on 28 May 2013. The possibility of mandatory inspections resulted in criticism in the media and from the real estate industry, which sees it as acting as a brake on development.

The Natural Resources Committee heard that the vast majority of houses in the Adelaide Hills would be vulnerable if a bushfire on the scale of the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 were to reoccur. Even newer dwellings, built after 2009, which must comply with Australian Standards 3959 for bushfire proofing, are only designed to withstand a fire danger index of 100, and this can be exceeded, as happened in the Canberra bushfires in 2003, the Wangary bushfire in 2005, and the Victorian Black Saturday bushfire in 2009.

The committee was, in relation to time constraints, unable to hear from the Real Estate Institute, the Local Government Association and a number of other witnesses before the end of the parliamentary session, but we felt very strongly as members of the committee that because we had taken evidence from a wide range of witnesses, including the Country Fire Service, the Metropolitan Fire Service, the City of Mitcham, the Blackwood/Belair District Residents' Association and the Housing Industry Association, we should have an interim report to this house.

After considering the evidence presented, we concluded that there were many additional measures relating to subdivision and planning and community awareness that also needed to be considered to improve bushfire safety, just to mention a few areas that we identified. The committee heard that councils have bushfire committees comprising elected members (councillors) and specialist staff and that these committees would potentially take on additional responsibilities.

Members heard that council-based bushfire committees have an excellent local knowledge and could potentially assist in ensuring that development plans provide for better access and egress for emergency vehicles and local residents. On days of catastrophic fire risk, however, it is unlikely that many houses in high-risk areas will survive a bushfire, no matter what level of protection has been afforded them. In these instances it is important that residents have an opportunity to safely evacuate early in the day and are suitably prepared well in advance to do so.

Consequently, the Natural Resources Committee has recommended that the Minister for Planning instruct councils in high-risk areas to amend their development planning process to prevent any cul-de-sac developments, to ensure that adequate vehicle access and egress is provided. Furthermore, councils should not be permitted to permanently close off roads without the approval of emergency services.

Residents in high-risk areas need to be prepared by having bushfire action plans well in advance of a potential bushfire. Members also noted that more than one plan may be required for each household, allowing for different conditions and different circumstances on different days of the week. I think members in this house would understand that we have different responsibilities on different days of the week and also in different seasons of the year, so one bushfire plan seemed to be inadequate under the circumstances.

Unfortunately we heard that a majority of people still do not have a bushfire action plan at all, and one of the concerns that was raised was the lack of consciousness on the part of many people with regard to bushfire prevention or any natural disaster prevention for that matter. A good way to encourage households to develop such plans is for the state government to provide a proforma plan that people can use and amend as required. This would be easier to do for people who have to start from scratch. Residents may also need support in preparing their own plans. The committee heard that the local residents' groups are proactively supporting residents in preparing their plans. We applaud these efforts. I have to say that the residents' groups that have come before the Natural Resources Committee over the past eight years that I have been on the committee have really showed a lot of leadership and initiative. I really commend them, particularly the residents' groups that we heard from in this inquiry and for our interim report.

Another proposal that the committee supported was from the Blackwood Belair District Community Association proposal that schools in bushfire risk areas team up with nearby schools on the plains and low fire risk areas that would remain open on days of catastrophic fire risk. This would enable parents to take their children to those schools rather than leaving them at home or having to turn up to an empty school on a catastrophic fire risk day. It also, I think, acknowledges that many parents have paid work responsibilities as well as other responsibilities and there needs to be a clear plan of what a parent can do with their children and in relation to other services like child care.

The committee heard that many areas of public land adjoining residential areas in the Mitcham Hills are often not managed for bushfire hazard reduction to local residents' satisfaction. The committee heard that residents considered unmanaged or little managed areas with tall dry grass and fallen trees to present a risk to adjoining property owners. The photos that the residents' group provided to our committee were interesting examples from neighbouring and nearby properties. Whether this land is managed privately or by local or state government, and probably federal government as well, it is important to be mindful of the risk and ensure that it is minimised as much as practicable, particularly when private residents are being implored to clear up their own properties to reduce bushfire risk. All landowners in the community, especially large ones such as state, federal and local government, need to set a good example.

Finally, the committee was concerned that many people in bushfire risk areas do not have fire insurance. Rather than making this a mandatory requirement, members supported the suggestion of the Hon. Robert Brokenshire that some consideration be given to developing a rebate on fire insurance for people in high risk areas who prepare bushfire action plans and lodge them with the insurer. We have recommended that the Minister for Emergency Services gives this further consideration.

I guess the frustration of our committee was that we were not able to hear from a number of witnesses that we really thought we needed to hear from in this inquiry, and we also hope that the next Natural Resources Committee might take this up as an ongoing issue for them, but we thank the Minister for Emergency Services for asking us to at least start to inquire into this area. If nothing else hopefully this has raised the issue again in the community and, noting the media interest in this particular report, we have achieved something in raising this matter.

I acknowledge the valuable contribution of the committee members: the members for Frome, Torrens, Little Para, Mount Gambier and Stuart, and the Hons Robert Brokenshire, John Dawkins, Russell Wortley and Gerry Kandelaars. We have all worked really well together. I also thank the parliamentary staff for their assistance in our interim report and over the year. I commend this report to the house.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:14): I too rise to speak on the Bushfire Preparedness of Properties in Bushfire Risk Areas report, and I will not go over all the same information that the Chair, the member for Ashford, has mentioned.

The key recommendations in this report are that a bushfire action plan should be lodged with the local council by all householders and that insurance companies in South Australia should be encouraged to offer a rebate on fire insurance to householders in high-risk bushfire areas who prepare and lodge bushfire action plans with the insurer. I think it should actually be a bit more than just lodging a plan: there could be a discount on insurance for people who can clearly demonstrate that their dwelling is a safer one, whether that be because there are sprinklers or other equipment, a bunker, or some other thing. That would certainly access, you would hope, cheaper insurance.

The third recommendation is very much about access and egress points. It is actually exceptionally concerning on a non-bushfire day to consider how an ambulance or some other emergency vehicle might get up and down some of these windy narrow roads in some of the Adelaide Hills areas with often legal and illegally parked vehicles on the side. You can just imagine the mayhem and the real nightmare it would be if there were a bushfire with emergency service vehicles trying to go one way and residents trying to go the other. Recommendation No. 4 is that state-owned land in the Adelaide Hills has all its vegetation cleared when adjacent to residential areas.

All these are very sensible matters, and I agree wholeheartedly with the member for Ashford when she says that it has been frustrating for us that we could not develop this report further, because we all agree on this committee that this is an exceptionally serious issue. It is a long way from Stuart, which has its own set of bushfire risks and concerns, but I would have to say that the most concerning potential negative outcomes in the Adelaide Hills really leave anything we might worry about in the electorate of Stuart miles in their wake with regard to serious potential outcomes. This is an exceptionally important issue, and I expect that the debate and community—and, hopefully, government—interest in this issue will continue long past this week when parliament and this committee cease to operate.

I would like to finish by saying that of all the recommendations we have put forward, and all the others we might have put forward if we had had more time, absolutely nothing is as important as the message the CFS and the MFS put out loud and clear to everybody—that on a bushfire-prone day, a catastrophic day being the highest category of risk, you have to leave early or you have to have a very good plan about how you might stay and defend your property. Any dithering in between is actually what is going to cause loss of property and loss of life in these serious situations.

If it is a catastrophic bushfire day and you do not have not just a plan but a robust plan—and a robust plan that you can implement, a plan that you can actually put into place if necessary—if you do not have that, get out of there. Go away. Your house being left unattended and potentially burning down is absolutely nothing compared to the loss of life that might be caused to you and your family if you stay in that home or to you and others out on the road if you and others contribute to congestion on roads that just become impassable because you have not left soon enough.

Our recommendations are very genuine and very serious. We would certainly have made more of them if we had had more time before parliament rose and the committee was wound up, but please heed the very serious messages from the emergency services: if you are going to go, go very early and, if you are going to stay, make sure you have a good plan you can implement.

Mr BROCK (Frome) (11:19): I also rise to speak on the Bushfire Preparedness of Properties in Bushfire Risk Areas report. If I may start by saying that I was astounded to see some of the things we did see on our tours out there. It just absolutely astounded me to see the danger, the growth and the vegetation out there that could in actual fact create a fire hazard and endanger not only the owners and their properties but also the people who are defending them.

As other speakers have indicated, we could not take all the witnesses because of the time frame, but certainly the recommendations we have come up with include requiring householders in bushfire zone areas to prepare bushfire action plans and lodge them with their local councils and emergency services. I would have thought that would be a common practice, but it was pretty widespread that that was not the case everywhere we went.

Another recommendation is about initiating discussions with the Insurance Council of Australia with a view to encouraging insurance companies to offer a rebate on fire insurance to householders in high-risk bushfire areas who prepare and lodge bushfire action plans with the insurer. Whilst that is a great move, I know that there would be a lot of properties out there that would have no insurance whatsoever. Again, that is another issue that I really do have.

One of the things I really found intriguing on the visits was the amount of what I call 'stupid' planning of some of the roads and cul-de-sacs. If there was a fire in certain areas, there is no way the people in those cul-de-sacs could actually get out, specifically if there was a fire down the other end. That is a real issue, and I think that local councils, as part of their planning organisation, really should be looking at that very closely. In a couple of cases, the roads going into the cul-de-sacs were very narrow; if cars were parked on the side of those roads, they would never be able to get a fire truck up there or get those people out. That is a real issue, and I think it is something that the local councils and planning minister should be taking on board.

Another issue is vegetation on vacant blocks and also on the blocks of households in the Adelaide Hills. We really must, as councils, as local government, as state government, and as natural resources committees, be proactive about these things and actually start clearing those well and truly before we get to the situation where some of the occasions arise.

In my area, the electorate of Frome—and I travel a fair bit—I have seen the vegetation grow fairly high in different areas and open spaces; however, they let it go for too long, and when it gets to the situation where it is just turning, just starting to die, the fire ban days come in (and they are coming in earlier at the moment) and therefore they cannot clear that roadside vegetation. It is the same with some of the adjoining blocks: they need to be cleared a lot sooner than they are at the moment.

We must also remember that the householders who do not do the right thing just walk away and expect the firefighters (whether they are full-time firefighters or volunteers through the CFS), the ambulance service, or whoever it may be, to come in and save their property. We must remember that those firefighters, whether they are full-time retainees or volunteers, are protecting our lives by coming into a situation where they are placing their own lives in jeopardy. We must remember that these people who try to protect us and do everything right are also parents; they have children. We should really start thinking about that.

People in general need to take a really hard look at the whole thing. It is the responsibility of not only the property owners but also, as I said earlier, local councils. One of the things I have found in my electorate has been in relation to the grain industry and harvesting. There have already been three or four fires. Luckily, they have been able to be contained, but certainly it is an issue that the grain industry and farmers themselves really must be aware of. If it is going to be a catastrophic fire day, do not take the headers out there, and do not chance an opportunity to start a fire by accidental means.

In closing, I would like to thank the parliament for giving me the opportunity to be on the Natural Resources Committee. As I have said on previous occasions, I have thoroughly enjoyed it; I have learned a tremendous amount by going to different locations across the whole state. I also thank the member for Ashford for her great leadership, as the presiding officer of the committee, and thank all my fellow members of the committee. I believe this committee has been very cooperative. There is tripartisan support across the whole committee, and I have not seen any political issues in it. That is the way a committee should be.

Again, I thank the parliament for giving me that opportunity. I would also like to thank the staff of that committee. I am certainly looking forward to an improvement in the control, maintenance and planning of some of the areas that were mentioned in our reports.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:25): I commend the committee on its report. It certainly is very wideranging and, in some areas, really quite contentious in relation to some of the things it has recommended, particularly when you talk about bushfire plans.

I have been involved with three or four fires in the last two weeks and I can say, up-front, that the local people get a bit annoyed at the bushfire warnings that come over the radio, how alarmist they can be and how they excite people. Really, after a while nobody listens—and that is the worst thing that could happen. A taped message comes over, with the siren sounding, and you get out there.

What happens now is that we do not report the fires, because we do not want this sort of stuff coming over on the ABC. We had the CFS out at a fire in the community a week ago, and it was not reported to the state headquarters because they did not think it was worthy of having this mandatory warning go out to people.

I think common sense comes into this a lot, it really does. I can say to the committee that I am very pleased it has raised and highlighted several issues here, because it is an issue right now. It is a really big issue right now, because we have had a high growth year and we are going to have some fires, there is no doubt about that. I do believe in having a bushfire plan. At least it forces us to think about it, to think about what happens. No-one intends to have a fire but, if you do, you really have to have thought about what you would do in that instance.

I am most concerned at the number of fires we have already had this season, especially fires started by harvesting equipment, and what I am about to say is somewhat controversial. Modern harvesters are running their engines much hotter, at least some of them do. Diesel trucks have to meet special emission requirements, and they do that by either running the engine much hotter, therefore burning excess exhaust emissions, or they have what we call an AdBlue box, which is a box that contains urea, to assist in the burn-off of those emissions from the engine.

These motors are graded as tier 2, which is a standard diesel engine, tier 3, which is the hot-running version that runs extremely hot and burns the gases, or tier 4, the newer technology, which is the AdBlue, and most trucks are now running these. Engines used on farms or off roads are exempt from this, so why are machinery companies putting these engines into harvesters? I do not know why they fit them. These are risky motors.

The tier 2 motors are acceptable before the law, and some companies have always used them. There have been some fires, but minimal fires with those. However, it is quite concerning when you realise that as well as having a very hot running engine—and I mean really hot, you cannot get near it hot—most modern harvesting machines have a straw chopper on the back, which powders the straw to dust, just obliterates it to dust. If you have a tail wind, guess what happens? It blows up into the back of the harvester and ends up sitting on the manifold—which is, of course, close to red hot. All of a sudden you can smell it, smouldering chaff, and then there is a panic.

It is much worse when you are reaping legumes, particularly peas and beans—especially beans. Luckily, with the fires that drop out of the machines the bean stubble is so very short it is usually manageable by the farmer, and that is why many of these fires are not reported. As I said, in our region in the last few weeks there have been many fires, most of them not reported because of the ABC scare and everything else. Farmers who own these machines know the problem, because they all talk about it.

They go to extraordinary lengths to be prepared with their own fire units, ready and right next to the harvesting operations with an extra driver, because if you can get there within five minutes, you can usually contain it to an area not much bigger than a kitchen table, as long as there is not strong wind. I think all harvesting and ag equipment companies should be told or it should be legislated that they should use the coolest motors that technology allows.

I note in this report the perils of being prepared for these fires, and I have to say, in some areas, you just wonder why people have not thought, particularly when you know you have dead-end roads. Trying to turn a fire truck around on a panicky day when there is smoke should be avoided at all costs. As I said earlier, it does concern me.

I know we have to be prepared, and we certainly are educating the community about the risks of fire. We have lost a lot of people in fires in the last two or three years, so we really cannot do enough, but can I say, with respect, the ABC particularly, as the fire station with their fire alerts, does annoy so many people when it is just a small grass fire and it comes over the radio and you get told you have to use a battery-powered radio and all this stuff. After a while, it really is a total switch off, and people are not using it.

With technology, most of the modern farmers, the younger ones, are using their mobiles, and we all have the CFS app on our telephone, but a lot of farmers, like me, are older, and they do not have a mobile phone, certainly not in the harvester, so there is that problem. I think we need to use common sense in these matters, and in retirement I certainly will be very much involved in this area, because we are seeing some pretty horrific—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

Mr VENNING: It's painted—yes, as long as it's painted. I will study this report with a lot of interest and make some comment back to the committee as well. I commend the committee. It is a good subject and it is relevant that we are talking about it right now.

Mr PEGLER (Mount Gambier) (11:31): I rise to speak on this report. As has been said before, I think it is essential that residents in bushfire prone areas do have bushfire management plans, and those plans can be quite simple, actually. I know with my own plan, it is basically insure everything well and go to the beach on those bad days. It might sound a bit slack or a bit funny, but I think that is the smartest thing that we can often do.

I also believe that there should be local area plans for various areas, and to give you an example, on Ash Wednesday, all the people in Tarpeena went to the oval, which had been kept nice and green. We now have sprinklers and a diesel motor there so that it protects the people. Basically, on that day, half the houses in Tarpeena were burnt down, but all the people survived, because they were in a safe area.

I think we should have local area plans, and as far as I am concerned, in the Adelaide Hills, on those catastrophic days, the people should just get out. There is no way known that we can expect our volunteers in the CFS and SES and the paid people in the MFS and SAPOL to go into an area like that and put their own lives at risk because people will not get the hell out of there on those bad days. I also believe that there is a responsibility on the councils and any developers that access and egress is proper, so that we can get trucks in there, if necessary.

The other thing I would say is that, as a society, it is very hard for us to help people who will not help themselves. I feel that if people will not make sure that their properties are clean and not fire prone, there is not a lot we can do for them. I do not believe in bringing in strict rules; if people want to take the risk, let them take the risk, but they should not then expect other people to look after them when things go wrong. I also believe that insurance should actually reflect the threat, so those people who have built homes that are fairly safe should have to pay less than those who have shoddily-built homes in very fire prone areas.

I would also say that it has been a great pleasure to serve on the Natural Resources Committee of this parliament. It has been a great joy to work with my fellow colleagues on that committee, which was chaired extremely well by the member for Ashford. To our staff, I also thank them. We covered a lot of areas and a lot of different things right throughout this state. I think that, as a committee, we certainly brought a lot of things to the fore. So, I would say to all of my colleagues, it was a great pleasure working with you. Thank you.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (11:35): I am pleased to make some comments in relation to this latest reported tabled by the Natural Resources Committee. It flows from the previous report that the committee presented to the house in relation to prescribed burning, because in the conclusions of that report that we discussed here several weeks ago one of the headings was, 'Landholder responsibility to reduce fuel loads on their properties', and obviously this report is entitled, 'Bushfire preparedness of properties in bushfire risk areas'.

I listened to the comments from the chairperson of the committee, the member for Ashford, and the member gave quite an accurate outline of the investigation and the report tabled here in parliament. I want to make comments in relation to what the committee has found. There is a heading in the report, 'Committee finding/comment', and also some recommendations made by the committee, and on reading the report there are four recommendations in total.

The first finding/comment the committee made was in relation to buyer beware (in Latin, caveat emptor) where people who are purchasing properties in bushfire risk areas should be given some information about the level of risk associated with the location of their property. That is, I guess, a reasonable finding, a reasonable comment, but you do find that people who move into the Adelaide Hills who have not previously lived there are not aware, necessarily, of the risk that faces them in relation to bushfire threats.

I have seen myself on particular roads in my local district where people have bought properties and then within a matter of two or three years they are exposed to a bushfire threat and within a short period of time after that those properties are back on the market. So, they have come up, they have experienced the hills environment, they have also experienced the threat of a bushfire and obviously are not prepared to live in those circumstances, in that environment, and the house goes back on the market and I presume they move back down into metropolitan Adelaide, onto the plains.

One of the interesting (if I can describe it that way) recommendations, being recommendation 1, is that the committee recommends that householders in bushfire danger zones prepare a bushfire action plan and lodge it with the local council. I notice that this report has hit the headlines of The Advertiser this morning and I notice that the shadow minister, the member for Bragg, has made some comments, and I presume they are accurate comments, and I have to agree with the member for Bragg that the bushfire action plan in itself will not really achieve much.

I also go to the point in relation to resourcing this particular initiative. I presume the responsibility of coordinating this—filing them, logging them and whatever the recording process may well be—would fall to the council's fire prevention officer. I happen to know the fire prevention officer in the Adelaide Hills Council quite well. I have known that person for many years. I played football with this particular person who assumes the role of fire prevention officer with the Adelaide Hills Council and I know that this particular officer is very, very busy, particularly leading up to and during the bushfire season. If the responsibility falls to that person then it comes back to resourcing, which then obviously comes back to funding. Which level of government would be responsible for funding this initiative?

It is all very well to have a bushfire action plan. The recommendation says that these plans could be based on a simple checklist. It is all very well to have a checklist, but the individual residents have to adhere to or enact the checklist, so I am not sure how effective just a simple checklist would be. I note the member for Bragg's comments in the paper. It would be ineffective without other actions taking place. The very title of the report in terms of 'bushfire preparedness of properties' goes to the issue that property owners and residents need to actively engage in reducing their bushfire risk by managing the vegetation and flammable material around their properties.

There are the obvious things such as fuel load adjacent to people's properties and the small fuel that the CFS came to brief us on and described to that meeting. It is not only having your firewood located in a particular place and having trees growing in a certain area to screen the ember blow but it also goes to other material kept in and around the home. I attended a community meeting at the Birdwood CFS brigade probably two years ago.

They provided a lot of very valuable information at that community meeting, but they showed a picture of a burnt area on the back of a home where the home owner had left a mop. It was just a normal household mop. The fire had come through, the cloth material of the mop caught alight, and obviously the timber handle of the mop. It created fire on the back of this home's veranda and it caused the home to catch on fire. Luckily, they were able to put it out, but it is those pretty basic, simple things that people need to be aware of. The action plans are all very good, but without putting simple measures in place they may not be of much value.

There are another three recommendations, with one talking about fire insurance. Some members raise the issue that insurance companies may offer a rebate on fire insurance to householders in high-risk bushfire areas. If those homes in high bushfire risk areas are going to have reduced premiums, who then pays for that risk? There is an old adage, 'high rate, high risk'. I am going back to my banking days where if a proposition seemed a bit risky then you charged a higher rate. It seems logical that if you have a home in a high-risk area then the insurance companies will charge a higher rate. My question is: if those premiums are going to be lowered, then who would pay the difference? And I think that would be borne across the insurance premiums sector.

They also talk about escape and traffic management issues in relation to the design of streets and roads. The very last recommendation talks about the responsibility for the management of state owned land. We have spoken about this previously, at other times in the house. It concerns me, when I read the previous report that the Natural Resources Committee tabled, that some sections of our parks in the Adelaide Hills still contain 25 tonnes per hectare of fuel. That is a serious issue.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:46): I commend the committee on trying to tackle a very important issue in a short space of time. Some people may be critical and say there is not a lot of in-depth research carried out, or preparation, but given the short time frame the committee was facing a very difficult task. A lot of the recommendations I would query to some extent. On this idea that people must have a plan, for goodness sake, if you live in a bushfire risk area (and I do) you should know that you need to take action to clear flammable material around your home, not have branches over your house, and all of those sorts of things. I do not know how intelligent someone has to be to realise that.

I do not know whether we want further bureaucracy to say that people need to have a fire action plan. If a catastrophic day is forecast, get out of the area; do not be in the area, because there's no point in trying to beat nature when it comes to a catastrophic-type fire. A few issues arise out of that. The road network in the Adelaide Hills is totally inadequate to cater for a day of catastrophic fire, when many vehicles would be on the road. We know from past experience that a lot of people escaping from bushfires are killed on the roads, trying to get away from the fire. They hit trees, cannot see because of the smoke, and so on. There is no way in the Adelaide Hills—whether you are talking about Blackwood, Belair, Coromandel Valley, Heathfield, Upper Sturt—that the roads up there could cater for a mass exodus. So, the message once again is: get out, and get out early.

The proposal to have children transferred to another school, I cannot see how that could be workable. Some of my schools have got hundreds of students, and to have that teed up, I think you would have more chaos, more panic. If you are leaving it to fairly late in the piece—I know this would be given the day before—I think it would create even further problems. How would you resource that other school? Who would take control of the children there? How would you get them there? All of these sorts of issues. I think it sounds like a reasonable idea, but I do not believe it is practical or feasible.

This idea of a mandatory checklist registered with the council would be more bureaucracy. As I say, if you do not have enough intelligence to safeguard your property by simply doing things like clearing the way fire prone vegetation, do not live in those areas.

In regard to the insurance recommendation that people get a rebate if they have a fire plan, that is not desirable. How will we know that it is updated, and it could change from day to day. I think a better approach by insurance companies is to relate the premium to the risk. So if you live in a timber framed home, where you are totally surrounded by bush, I do not think you should pay the same premium as someone who lives at Henley Beach in a brick home.

I think there is a basic inequity currently. If you live in a house, a property, which is at great fire risk and you do not take the necessary precautions, then I think the insurance company should say, 'Well, look, your risk is much higher and you will pay a higher premium.' I think it would be better if the insurance companies paid attention to what they were insuring, rather than rely on a phone call from someone saying, 'Insure my property because I live in the Adelaide Hills.' I do not think that is a productive recommendation.

Regarding the recommendation about bunkers, I would be very careful about promoting bunkers and encouraging people to install a bunker in the hope that if there is a catastrophic fire they can hop in there and do what Hitler did. We know from experience and research that in a catastrophic-type fire there is a lack of oxygen in bunkers, unless they have a self-contained oxygen generating system, and people are asphyxiated in there.

It is like people jumping into a big rainwater tank: people boiled like lobsters in some of the recent bushfires. People think, 'I'll get into a big water tank; I'll be right.' Yes, you will be like a lobster: you will be cooked. If you hop into a bunker, unless it has self-contained filtering and oxygen generating equipment, you will be asphyxiated and you will die. I do not believe we should be encouraging people to build bunkers. We should be encouraging them to get out early, well away from the fire, if it is going to be a catastrophic-type fire.

In relation to roads, Mitcham council (I actually live in Mitcham, just across the creek from my electorate) has gone out of its way to make it harder for the residents of Craigburn Farm (Blackwood Park) to get out in a fire. It spent $50,000 on legal expenses to find out that it already had the power to close off a road which would allow those people to get out quickly on the northern side.

There are only two exits from Craigburn Farm, and there are 1,200 homes. Those people, you can imagine, have two cars because they are fairly affluent. The council has made it difficult for them to escape from a bushfire that may come up the Sturt Gorge, or from the west or from the north. Here we have one of the key players making it difficult for their own residents to escape if they had to escape in an emergency. It is quite silly.

We also see councils allowing buildings in fire-prone areas. I can guarantee that today in parts of Heathfield and Upper Sturt people are building in areas that I call suicidal. There is no way in the world that the house or the people could survive if there was a fire, yet councils are still approving those developments. They may be required to have a sprinkler system, or something like that, but if you get a fire like Ash Wednesday, or the recent one in Victoria, a sprinkler system will not save you when you have plonked the house in the middle of bushland.

I am a great lover of bushland and I try to support its retention, but I do not believe people should be building houses in those situations. It is a bit like allowing people to build in a flood-prone zone or some other dangerous area. We know the risk, and you are going to put the lives of CFS volunteers and others on the line trying to protect those properties because the natural inclination of the CFS people will be to try to save a property and save a home.

As was mentioned earlier, you can barely get a fire truck down some of the roads anyway. You would be lucky to get a fire truck out because you can hardly turn in some of those areas. Planning is a key issue, and people should not be allowed to build any more homes in areas which are extreme fire risk areas, and that is a fact that needs to be taken into account.

As for the other issues, people should be encouraged to plant appropriate fire retardant vegetation, but not necessarily remove all trees, as we know from research that trees can actually protect property. They can moderate the wind, reduce radiant heat and reduce ember attack. People need to be careful. They need to look at the research. What we do should be based on sound research, not on folklore and myth.

The other point is that not many koalas light fires. Most of the fires are deliberately lit by arsonists, who should be severely punished and, I think, even more vigorously restricted on catastrophic days. The police do a great job with their Nomad program but I think it ought to be ratcheted up a notch. Known arsonists, people who cannot help themselves, should be restricted to an area where they are not going to cause damage and put people's lives at risk.

I note in the Murray Bridge paper, which is a good paper, they referred recently to arsonists as 'fire bugs'. We should stop calling them fire bugs; they are criminals who put lives and property at risk. So, I think we should be looking at using some of the new technology such as drone technology to keep an eye on things and to keep an eye on known arsonists and people who take risks on days of fire risk. We should put more effort into making sure people are not doing silly things with angle grinders and such on high fire risk days.

I think the report is good. It publicises the issue, but I do not think the committee had enough time to look in depth at some of the key issues that really need to be addressed if we want to come to terms with fire preparedness.

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