Page 303 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007
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which people and agencies fulfil their roles and responsibilities. As pointed out so appropriately by Mr Pratt, the act currently says that the commissioner and/or his chief officers, that do not exist any more, “may” act in certain areas. What Mr Pratt is saying is that the bill requires that the relevant people will act to prevent disaster and they will act to minimise risk. We need to be fair dinkum about the way we manage our bushfire plans and work out what is required of all of us, irrespective of where we work and what our responsibilities might be.
Mr Speaker, there are lessons to be learnt from the outcomes of the 2003 bushfire disaster. The opposition intends, through these amendments, to have many more bushfire operational plans than currently exist. This would include such areas as vulnerable suburbs, perhaps in some cases individually and in some cases as groups. We may need to include streets, and incredibly vulnerable streets were identified in the bushfire management plan that operated under the previous government. It may be just a rural settlement or other key geographical areas. But a relevant operational plan would be prepared and it could be accessed as soon as an emergency arose.
This sensible legislation, introduced by Mr Pratt, has been on the table for some time. In the meantime, the coroner’s report has been delivered and much of what the coroner speaks about is addressed by this bill. Mr Corbell seeks to say it is too hard, it would involve too much paperwork and it is not the approach we want to take. Mr Pratt has helped manage emergency situations around the world and has had extensive experience in the Australian military. You are talking about an individual who has spent his life in one way or another in emergency management. Based on his expert opinion and the years of experience that he has accumulated, the opposition has put forward this bill. I agree with what he has put forward here.
“May” should disappear, “must” should be there in its stead. We should be able, with modern tools, to be able to plan down to very small areas which can be grouped together. We should be able to cover much larger areas or just a significant front. Mr Speaker, you are a former firefighter. You understand that a shift in the wind can change a very narrow fire front affecting a small area to an enormously large fire front affecting a much larger area. This is what Mr Pratt is talking about—planning for the options, planning for the scenarios, having the modules there that can be pulled down when you need them so that we, as a community, can prepare and respond appropriately.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (4.17), in reply: Mr Speaker, I would like to pick up on a couple of points as I wrap up the debate. Firstly, the minister claims that our amendment bill would create a further glut of paperwork. I do not see why that would be the case. If he means by that that, as I propose, there would be additional bushfire operational plans—indeed, there would be a hell of a lot more than we currently have on the table—well, yes, I suppose physically speaking there would be more documents printed.
However, the concern about a glut of paperwork in any sense of governance really refers to a fear that you might be putting in place further layers of documentation and bureaucracy that would confuse the people who need to look at and refer to these documents in order to carry out certain actions. We have not proposed that. If by adding additional bushfire operational plans we are able to provide further plans to
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