Page 298 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007
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In terms of the list of places in New South Wales vulnerable to bushfire crossing into the ACT, I note that version 2 of the SBMP is to include the memoranda of understanding with managers of national land and New South Wales land. I agree that this list of places would be a good thing to incorporate into it, along with an action plan.
I do take Mr Pratt’s point about the SBMP being more of an outline of a plan, rather than containing much in the way of detail, and that the detail is actually in each bushfire operational plan. These BOPs are the key to the information and level of detail that Mr Pratt wants to see, but I do not think we need this detail in the act.
I think there is some merit in the proposed section on BOPs, as the plans which are supposed to cover all the areas which are not unleased land should all have bushfire management components. However, they do not necessarily, and even if they do, they are only supposed to come back into the SBMP, not into action plans. The operational plans are only supposed to be for one to two years. They are not overall management plans.
Yes, there should be more BOPs. Each district could do with one. It would be useful to have a plan for each geographic area, for the residents, for emergency services. If we ever had help from interstate firefighters, they could then easily understand where our evacuation routes are, where access to water is and so on. We need to ensure that each BOP is tailored to the particular area and ensure that we have different management styles for various land types; for example, that the urban edge is treated very differently from the national parks and reserves. This may mean that a management technique that is acceptable along the interface between a nature reserve and suburbia would be completely inappropriate in a national park.
In order to achieve effective bushfire management planning for the ACT, we need to ensure that BOPs which set out recommended bushfire suppression plans are developed for each area, with local community input. Yes, I am on again about community consultation, Mr Hargreaves. This is how to involve the community, more than just telling them how to fireproof their roofs and their yards, which, of course, is also important. Involving community members in the local BOP means that they will then own it and there is more likelihood that they will know what to do in, let’s hope it does not happen, the event of a fire.
To ensure that the Canberra community is behind any decisions regarding fire management, and perhaps also to get greater efficiency out of our limited territory and municipal services ranger staff, local park care groups and residents along the suburban interface need to be working with, not at cross-purposes to, each BOP.
I mentioned last week, in discussing the no-confidence vote, the fireguard program in Victoria, which has been so successful, whereby there are nine coordinators working with communities and there is a total of 400 plans which can be put into operation at the community level in the case of a fire. I mentioned also that Victoria and some other municipalities are ahead because they had terrifying bushfires earlier than we did and they have set in place programs which appear to be working and which would have some relevance to us. I highly commend the fireguard proposal and would
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