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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2911 ..
MR WOOD (continuing):
those recommendations were being implemented, had been implemented or were under way. However, I do not think you knew about it, so I can forgive you for that.
Another major aspect-which Mr Quinlan has dealt with well-is that of education. Forget the nonsense that Mr Pratt moved in November of 2001. Education, you say, has not been undertaken, but it has been undertaken. Again, perhaps you have not read it yet, but the McLeod report, at pages 174 and 175, goes into some detail about that. Perhaps the subsequent speaker might refer to some of that. What was not in that McLeod summary was the 203 television spots shown in that period.
I was Minister for Environment at that time, and I remember the major launch we did out at one of our nature parks at Bruce, and the enormous promotion that that was. We did not have to work very hard, I might say, for community education, because the media itself was intensely interested, and there was an enormous amount of material available in that period before 18 January. We did pay attention to those 102 recommendations and there was a great deal more work done, and it is simply dissembling to say that it did not happen. It is more than misleading: I think it is deceitful.
However, I raised this theme of Mr Pratt's confusion and how difficult that is. In his speech, Mr Pratt has demonstrated to the nth degree just how this opposition is struggling. On this education matter, Mr Pratt says that we did not do enough. However, in that same speech on 13 November, there was something he did not read out. Let me quote from that speech at page 3,571, and I will read a little bit of preamble too:
I believe that all ACT residents can be satisfied that our emergency services have done all that they can possibly do to prepare for this dangerous season.
Yes. He tried to break that down a bit and a bit more afterwards, and he could not explain that away. He goes on:
Our bushfire and urban brigades have been out and about for months backburning and preparing the field. Where vulnerable neighbourhoods, particularly those fronting on to bushland on their western fringes and perhaps with western gradients falling away, have cooperated with fire units in preventive preparations and education, the fire units have been most willing and they have been proactive.
Listen to this, as he goes on, "The same applies to school education."Just before the fires, he is saying that the education has been great. However, today, he wants to change his mind about that. He continued:
Where schools have been diligent and sought to undertake education on bushfire prevention programs, employing expert assistance, fire units have been willing.
He simply wants to change his mind. The opposition want to change their minds. (Extension of time granted.) It is this difficulty they have. They cannot come out and say, "The government has done a good job in the circumstances."They simply cannot say that. They have to struggle for some relevance in this. They have to nitpick and move against the community's very strong general view that the situation was
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