Page 2984 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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need or want. It is not good financial management and is certainly not good preparation for an upcoming fire season where, in the middle of September, we are getting days where it is 25 degrees already. Is El Nino coming again? We will find out.
We are seeing the heat coming much earlier, which will lead to greater curing; we have had less rain; there is good growth out there; there has been good growth. I can assure you that fuel loads are up. But we do not have the plans that we were promised. We do not have a finalised strategic bushfire management plan. From that, based on other things that have happened inside the ESA and other things that have happened inside this government, the community does not get the confidence that they deserve.
What happened to the community fire units? How many, Mr Pratt?
Mr Pratt: Twenty-eight.
MR SMYTH: Out of how many, Mr Pratt?
Mr Pratt: We need at least 51.
MR SMYTH: Fifty-one. Where are they? Where is the commitment? They are coming—like the bushfire management plan. Where is the financial control for the ESA? It is not quite that bad in fact because it has been drawn back into the department. It is not even three years since McLeod, and McLeod is being dismantled. That is what is happening with the strategic bushfire management plan. It is being dismantled because it has not been completed; it has not been finalised; it has not been delivered to give Canberrans a certainty that they deserve.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.08): I seek leave to move the amendment circulated in my name.
Leave granted.
DR FOSKEY: I move:
Add:
“(3) calls on the Government to report to this Assembly by the end of the next sitting week on the effects of cuts to staff of the former Environment ACT and Parks and Conservation services upon the Parks Brigade’s capacity to conduct operational planning and to fight fires.”
This amendment anticipates that the government’s amendment will be successful and become the resolution and consequently adds point (3).
I reiterate that, if Mr Pratt’s motion gets up, I will support part (a), part (b) (2) and paragraph (ii) of that. But if the government’s amendment gets up, I would like to have added to it a part (3):
calls on the Government to report to this Assembly by the end of the next sitting week on the effects of cuts to staff of the former Environment ACT and Parks and Conservation services upon the Parks Brigade’s capacity to conduct operational planning and to fight fires.
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