Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

In seconding the motion from the member for Nicholls, I commend him for bringing the House's attention to the terrible events that occurred in Victoria over the January period. Now, we do live in a very fire-prone environment in Victoria, and the conditions in the north-eastern and western parts of the state have been very dry. I want to commend the volunteers and the agencies involved in the suppression work and in the immediate relief and recovery efforts as well, and extend my condolences to those who have lost property in those fire events.

We need to be doing more to front-end our efforts around prevention, around mitigation and around resilience when it comes to managing bushfire in the environment. We do live in a fire-prone environment in Victoria, and the risk of out-of-control blazes and the damage they can do to properties, to lives and to native animals need to be properly understood. I invite those listening to think about the components of these catastrophic events. To have a fire of this magnitude, you obviously need some sort of ignition point, and there will always be ignition points. It could be a lightning strike, it could be an accident, it could be equipment failure or it could be some idiot with a match. You also need dry, windy conditions. And low and behold, in Victoria, in summer we will have days that are dry and windy. But you also need a fuel load and that is the essence of the motion before the House today—the question of fuel load and mitigation and prevention activities.

The only thing we can really control when it comes to bushfires is the temperature associated with the fuel load. If we manage the fuel load, we can just turn down the severity, turn down the temperature a bit so the damage to the environment, the damage to properties, the damage to people trying to fight these fires is minimised. We have to do more to reduce the fuel load, particularly on public land in Victoria. I've said it before that to do that you need more boots and fewer suits. That's more boots on the ground doing practical environmental work right throughout the year and fewer suits, fewer suits in Canberra and Melbourne making excuses for why the work can't be done.

So I encourage the Victorian government think very, very carefully about this simple proposition: more boots, fewer suits, and undertake the fuel reduction work to keep our communities safe because people and native animals die in poorly maintained forests. We've seen it before and we'll see it again because of the neglect of the bush.

One point in the motion by the member for Nicholls which is also worth reflecting on is that the shutdown of the sustainable native hardwood timber industry in Victoria has limited the capacity to fight bushfires in the state.

See this speech in context