Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges the:

(a) devastating impact of the Victorian bushfire emergencies on regional communities;

(b) tireless work of volunteer firefighters and emergency service personnel who put themselves in danger to keep the community safe; and

(c) long-term recovery effort faced by the impacted areas to get back on their feet;

(2) notes that the:

(a) Victorian State Government is failing to properly manage public land by inadequately carrying out fuel load reducing planned burns which mitigate the bushfire risk;

(b) Victorian State Government has not learned the lessons from previous bushfires and is failing to keep people safe; and

(c) shutdown of the sustainable native hardwood timber industry in Victoria has limited the capacity to fight bushfires in the state; and

(3) urges the Commonwealth Government to:

(a) support those who have lost their homes and livelihoods;

(b) recognise the need to mitigate the bushfire risk to regional communities through planned burns;

(c) ensure Australia has the sovereign capability to fight bushfires; and

(d) co-ordinate a national response to bushfire emergencies when they occur.

Last month in my electorate, but also, predominantly, in the electorate of the member for Indi, catastrophic bushfires tore through communities, farmland and bushland. In the area of Longwood, which is a small town and a very proud community situated just off the Hume Freeway, the main road between Melbourne and Sydney, a fire started, and the north-westerly winds pushed it into the bushland and farmland. Over 140,000 hectares were burnt, including the communities of Ruffy and Gooram. The Yarroweyah fires also happened on a similar day, in the same heat event, in the north of Victoria. Yarroweyah is just south of the Murray River. Again, strong winds and hot temperatures pushed this bushfire catastrophe along the roadside, destroying some 10 to 12 houses.

When you go out and have a look at the situation after the fire has gone through, you can notice one thing very clearly, and that is that, however the fire started—and there's a lot of speculation that it was sparks coming from vehicles on the road—it followed the path of the fuel load on the side of the road. This fuel load appears to locals not to have been managed in the way it should have been. You can see, particularly on the Benalla-Tocumwal Road, that as that wind from the north pushed it to the south the roadside fuel load and vegetation was the conduit for the fire and pushed it. It would go towards any dry paddock and, tragically, destroyed 10 to 12 houses.

The CFA recommend that, for catastrophic fire events, the roadside vegetation, dry grass, should not be higher than 10 centimetres. The CFA volunteers have observed that it was higher than 10 centimetres. It's very important that we learn from this and that, particularly, the Victorian government understands it has a responsibility to manage that roadside fuel load. Now, we don't know whether it would have stopped this fire completely, but among those in the know the CFA volunteer group's Brad Marson has said that this makes the situation hazardous and fires a lot harder to suppress.

A lot of damage has been done, particularly in the shire of Strathbogie, which is where Longwood and the towns of Euroa and Ruffy and a number of other places are. It's critically important that the federal government come to the party and help this community and this shire, which has a very low rate base, rebuild its roads, bridges, culverts and community infrastructure, such as town halls and playgrounds, to give just some examples. The reason that this community is a bit desperate to try and get the Albanese government's attention on this is that they had a bridge that was damaged in the 2022 floods, called Kirwans Bridge. They have applied to every program they can think of to try and get that bridge funded. It'll take $7 million to get that bridge, which connects two communities, funded for the repair after the 2022 floods. At every point, the Albanese government has refused to fund it. So they're looking at a backlog of infrastructure funding from the previous disaster, and now they've had another disaster—the fires—and they're worried that the federal government is not interested.

On a more positive note, I do want to commend the CFA volunteers, who, with their bravery, courage and professionalism, went out and fought these fires and saved a great number of dwellings and a great amount of farmland from being destroyed. I also want to pay tribute to the member for Gippsland and my National Party state colleague Annabelle Cleeland, who is the member for Euroa. What she has done for her community in the aftermath of this fire, despite being personally affected herself, has been amazing and shows the community spirit and what a great local member could do. I also want to give a shout-out to the professionalism of Kestrel Aviation, which is located in Mangalore in my electorate. Their work with their helicopters put out many fires. I encourage the government to continue to fund those sorts of fire emergency services.

Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do we have a seconder for the motion?

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to 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.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear Hear!

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

Bingo—bingo! The member for Nicholls is spot on, because these were the skilled workers in the bush with the equipment that we relied on to keep us safe. In an act of absolute political bastardry—ideology gone mad—the Labor-Greens in Victoria combined to shut down the native hardwood timber industry, and our communities are less safe as a direct result of that policy decision. So I call on the Victorian parliament—the Liberals and the Nationals, I wish you all the best in the lead-up to next election—if you get that opportunity, restore the native hardwood timber industry to help keep our communities safe.

Now, finally, I want to reflect just on one other point. I do admire locals who manage to maintain their passion and enthusiasm for practical environmental management, even in the face of all this hostility from the Labor-Greens in Melbourne. And one of those locals is a fellow by the name of John Mulligan. John is 94 and he's just launched his new book called Our Mismanaged Forests, which draws on his decades of experience of living and working in the bush. Now, John is a survivor of the 1939 Black Friday bushfires. He's seen, right throughout East Gippsland, all the major fire events which have impacted our community over the nine decades of his life. In his book he highlights again the consequences of accumulated fuel loads and the lack of consistent fuel management and fuel reduction burns in our community, and also the importance of adopting some of the practices of the Indigenous people who were here for thousands of years, long before whitefellas turned up, and who were using firestick technology to actually reduce the fuel loads. So John Mulligan advocates for communities to learn to live with good fire in the environment as a means of reducing the risk of these mega-fires which do so much damage.

In closing, I thank the volunteers. I thank those who've done so much to help our community recover. But I call on the Victorian government to please do more to reduce the fuel load on public land in Victoria.

Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.