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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-16 Daily Xml
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Bushfire Preparedness

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (15:19): We have all seen in the news reports of late coming out of Queensland in regard to some of the uncontrollable bushfires that are burning across their state. We have seen the Northern Hemisphere summer come and go with devastating effect in Maui, Canada and Europe. We know that right here in South Australia we have just come off the warmest winter on record.

We also know that La Niña has hit the road and she is to be replaced by her much angrier brother, El Niño. A few examples of El Niño's work include the summer leading up to the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983 and also the Sampson Flat and Pinery fires in 2015. El Niño is bringing with him a positive Indian Ocean dipole, and their combination is going to bring a much drier and warmer summer than we have experienced over the last few years.

My community know only too well the constant threat of living in a high bushfire risk area. Surrounded by native bushland and terrain that is often inaccessible to firefighters, we know that we need to be prepared for all that nature can bring. I am passionate about building a resilient community, one that understands these risks and threats and does what it can to be prepared.

I know our local brigades are as ready as they can be. They train every week and practise as much as they can to be prepared, but there are limited resources and limited volunteers who already give so much, so it is a joint responsibility across our community. Individual residents need to also be prepared, have all the information they need, and be ready and able to make good decisions on unbearable days. I believe we can never know enough, though, so I have been doing what I can to bring our community together to learn more.

The weekend before last I brought them all to the Blackwood Memorial Hall with experts from multiple agencies so that my community could learn about the risk, learn about what could happen, what our different agencies are doing, and also to ask questions about what the upcoming fire season may look like. Close to 300 people attended my bushfire resilience forum. Held in conjunction with our federal member, Louise Miller-Frost, we welcomed our state and federal emergency services ministers, the member for Cheltenham and Senator the Hon. Murray Watt. They joined us to talk about our government's commitment to keeping our bushfire-prone communities and our firefighters safe.

Locally, we are investing in five new aircraft. These are being added to the CFS aerial firefighting fleet, increasing the number from 26 to 31 following a $27.6 million state government investment. These planes can make all the difference in rough terrain, as we saw at Montacute earlier this year.

Following a briefing from our ministers, my community heard from a raft of experts. Dr Doug Bardsley spoke to us about El Niño and climate warming. He was followed by Alison May, Director of Community Risk and Resilience from the CFS. Alison spoke about the CFS as a whole, about being prepared, where residents can go to get more information, and also that residents have various types of communication available to them, including the Alert SA app, the CFS website, social media and, of course, a battery-powered radio.

Our Sturt group of the CFS comprises Eden Hills, Blackwood, Belair, Coromandel Valley and Cherry Gardens. Group Officer Dale Thompson has been in the service for much of his life and also works for the MFS. Serving his community is in his nature. Dale spoke about the capacity of his brigades and gave advice on leaving the area on a catastrophic day and to not be on the roads if a fire was active in the area.

Following the CFS briefing, Ian Tanner, Manager of Fire in the Mount Lofty Ranges from National Parks and Wildlife, let us know about how our parks are managed. My community is fortunate to live with the oldest national park in the state, Belair National Park, as well as Sturt Gorge, Shepherds Hill Reserve, Brownhill Creek, Waite Conservation Reserve, Watiparinga and many other pockets of state-managed parks. Ian explained how these areas are being prepared for the bushfire season, especially where they meet with residential areas.

His presentation was thorough and somewhat alarming as he spoke about fire behaviour and the chances of saving property in densely thick scrublands, especially those located on slopes. Ian was joined by Tony Magor, who is the new manager of the district replacing Richard DeGroot. We thank Richard for all of his work over the past years.

Josh Lanes from State Flora concluded our panel discussion with information about building a resilient garden for bushfire preparedness. I know many in the audience will be paying Josh a visit soon at the Belair National Park. I want to thank all of these dedicated specialists for coming out on Sunday but also for being there for my community.

Our forum did not stop there, though. Once the panel had finished, I invited on stage to join them Paul Roberts from SA Power Networks, Daniel Willetts from SAFECOM, Mayor Heather Holmes-Ross on behalf of the City of Mitcham, Councillor Geoff Eaton on behalf of Onkaparinga council and our two ministers to be available for questions from the crowd—an impressive group of experts available for our community to ask questions that they had. I was very pleased with the outcome from the event and thank all who came along and my staff and volunteers who helped with the event. It is going to be a very challenging season. Last night, we had another forum in Upper Sturt with another 60 people. I encourage my community to do all that they can to be prepared.

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