Page 3392 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 18 September 2013
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We have not had any significant fires in the ACT since 2003. So we have a build-up of 10 years of fuel. And whilst there has been considerable controlled burning, if the fire season starts we have to always be wary and prepared for the season.
Part of the requirement, under the Emergencies Act, of the strategic bushfire management plan is to of course detail what resources are required to meet the bushfire threat. For many years now—and probably the first time I asked the question was in estimates for the 2008-09 budget—we have asked what the NRFS believed was an appropriate list of resources that they needed to do the job properly. Initially those questions were stalled. We had a minister who played dumb, who claimed not to know what had been done. But I understand that all of the heads of service were asked to prepare what they thought was required to carry out their roles and that these were forwarded to the government.
Now we do know they exist, because the minister has plainly admitted that such things have existed, although for years he denied their actual existence. And we know they exist because he answered so to a question on notice. The question on notice and the answer came out of, again, the public hearings of the Select Committee on Estimates. The question was:
Have there been internal reviews conducted by either ESA as a headquarters or the four services as to their requirements and capability, say, in the last five or six years? If you find such reviews—and I am aware of a couple of documents—could you please provide the committee with copies of those reviews?
What was the minister’s answer? He said that there had been a number of reviews: the strategic bushfire management plan version 2, the government response to the McLeod recommendations, the Ambulance Service review called the Lennox review, an ESA expenditure review, an ESA financial review, a fleet and procurement review, sustainable resource modelling work and on-call ESA duty officer arrangements. There were a number of other reviews.
Then the final line in the answer was that the other reviews were considered financial, budget or commercial in-confidence or of an internal operational nature—yes, I am sure they are of an internal operational nature—and were not considered appropriate for public release. So it does raise the question: what have the minister and the government been hiding for the last four or five years?
Now that we know that such reviews have been done, that the services have said, “We know exactly what we’d like to have,” it all comes to a head when of course the Auditor-General drops the bushfire preparedness report No 5 of 2013, where she says on page 24, in the summary:
The Emergency Services Agency should comply with the Emergencies Act 2004 requirements for the Strategic Bushfire Management Plan by including in this Plan an explicit statement of all resources needed to meet the objectives of the Plan.
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