Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After almost 10 years of drought it is nothing short of a blessing to see the countryside green and lush from recent consistently heavy rains. It is a fundamental law of nature that we are subject to the elements. The weather is neither something that we can control nor something that we can accurately predict—except if you are in the Greens Party, where they profess to be able to predict ‘change to the climate’ in weather in 20 or 100 years time. But it is the very unpredictability of Mother Nature that does not allow us to leave to chance or dumb-luck the protection of our homes, livelihood and families from the ferocious destruction bushfires can wreak upon communities across Australia.

February 7, 2009 will go down in history as one of, if not the, worst natural disaster that has ever occurred in Australia. The morning dawned with a forecast of temperatures in the 40 degree-plus vicinity, very low humidity and winds that had the potential of reaching speeds well in excess of 100 kilometres per hour. There is a stinging similarity in this weather forecast to those given on several occasions over the last 60 or so years. The bushfires of 1939, the 1965 Chatsbury and Bungonia fires that ravaged villages north of Goulburn, the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983, the Sydney bushfires and the 2003 Canberra firestorm all come to mind, just to mention a few.

After the tragedy of a major bushfire event, there is inevitably a time when those people who have suffered the loss of loved ones and the loss of property and personal possessions go through a long period of grieving to try to come to terms with how they will cope with their loss and how they will eventually recover and rebuild their lives.

I have had personal experience with assisting people who have been victims of such a major tragedy. This experience fuelled my passion to become involved in the inquiry into the 2003 Canberra firestorm and I was a member of the House of Representatives Select Committee tasked with conducting that inquiry. The committee was tasked to identify measures that could be implemented by governments, industry and the community to minimise the incidence of bushfires and their impact on life, property and the environment. The terms of reference adequately covered these serious fire protection issues.

The select committee’s report, entitled A nation charred: report on the inquiry into bushfires, was tabled in October 2003. It contained 59 recommendations which identified areas for possible action by the Australian and state and territory governments, the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, the insurance industry, Standards Australia and the Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council. It is of significant importance at this stage to reveal that, to my knowledge, not one of the 59 recommendations of this inquiry has been implemented and the committee’s report continues to lie on a shelf gathering dust.

Sadly, history has shown that large fires which occur on a day when temperatures are in the high 30s and mid 40s and high winds are in existence have devastating consequences where fuel loads are allowed to build up to dangerous levels beneath the tree canopy. Several key concerns were consistently raised in evidence from fire affected areas. Local knowledge was either ignored or discarded; fuel loads—leaf litter, et cetera—were extremely high; a decline of fuel reduction programs on public and private lands; inadequate access to national parks; slowness of response and lack of aggression by management responsible for fire suppression activities; mismanagement of fire suppression operations; and failures of radio communication systems and equipment.

It is no secret that strategically planned and effectively implemented fuel reduction by burning is the primary means of risk reduction and more importantly it is by far the most effective means of protecting people, infrastructure and biodiversity. It is also no secret that pressure put on governments of all levels by green politics and environmental activists has led to the nonimplementation of fuel hazard reduction in bushfire prone areas of Australia, resulting in outcomes of massive long-term destruction of flora and fauna and tragic loss of human life. Governments at all levels cannot allow the chorus of the environmental lobby to dictate our fuel reduction policy. The safety of fellow Australians and the protection of property, livestock and biodiversity are, I believe, more important than marginal seat politics.

Common sense says we must get back to the basics of bushfire prevention, and that is the introduction and continuation of strategically planned and effectively implemented fuel reduction burns controlled by local rural fire brigades. These people are the best qualified to recognise the potential areas of hazard in their local area as well as the protection of human life and preservation of our unique landscape. Their record for aggressively attacking fires with all the resources at their disposal and putting fires out quickly is nothing short of legendary.