Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Over the last few decades, Tasmania has experienced a long-term drying trend that has been characterised by a 10 to 20 per cent reduction in cool seasonal rainfall. An upward trend in bushfire occurrence has also been occurring since the 1930s. The total area burned has tripled since the 1960s. In 2015, the state had its driest-ever spring on record, which goes back for the last 140 years, and the hottest October on record, prompting an early start to the fire permit period. In 2016, a total of 229 vegetation fires were recorded from 13 January to 15 March, burning a total area of 124,742 hectares with a combined perimeter of 1,260 kilometres in largely remote, rugged and inaccessible areas. About 20,125 hectares, or 1.27 per cent, of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area was affected by these fires, including about 1,466 hectares, or 1.8 per cent, of threatened and sensitive vegetation communities, some of which may not ever recover. Other sensitive areas that were also affected by the fires include Aboriginal and historic heritage areas. In 2019, almost all of Tasmania recorded accumulated monthly forest fire danger indices—FFDI—in the highest 10 per cent of historical values for December 2019, and much of the eastern half of the state recorded its highest ever December forest fire danger indices on 30 December. Several locations recorded temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s that day, with several experiencing a temperature record for December.

Tasmania registered 406 lightning strikes that ignited dozens of bushfires that day, including a fire south of Pelham, in the upper Derwent Valley, 45 kilometres north-west of Hobart. In extreme fire weather conditions, the fire spread rapidly south-east in dry forest and grasslands towards the rural communities of Elderslie and Broadmarsh. Professor David MJS Bowman, a professor of pyrogeography and fire science and director of the Fire Centre Research Hub at the University of Tasmania, wrote in his submission to the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council review of the management of Tasmanian bushfires during the 2018-19 fire season:

The 2018-2019 Tasmanian bushfire season conforms to a global trend of longer duration, geographically larger, and economically, environmentally, and socially more disruptive wildfire events. The 2019 fire season also fitted an emerging syndrome of lightning-ignited bushfires in western Tasmania. The Tasmanian bushfire season can be understood as an expression of the 'Anthropocene', a new trajectory for the Earth System induced by anthropogenic climate change, compounded by other factors such as land use and fire regime changes. Bushfires in the Anthropocene have a trajectory that tracks away from historical norms towards more extreme events. The increased frequency of abnormal fires will significantly reduce our ability to reliably ensure clean air, supply potable water, store carbon, and conserve soils.

The emergence of 'Anthropocene bushfires' raises profound questions for fire management and community safety, and requires the development of new fire management practices to protect human life, property and infrastructure, to conserve heritage and biodiversity, to manage conservation areas and national parks, and to sustain yields from forestry landscapes and hydroelectrical catchments. Anthropocene bushfires demand a recalibration of socio-political expectations around the capacity, effectiveness and financial costs of firefighting and fire prevention approaches, methods and practices.

That's just in Tasmania, and just in the last 14 years.

Australia-wide, this last bushfire season was a horror one. The stories are still very raw: 33 lives lost; thousands of homes destroyed; many families still without proper shelter; hundreds of businesses destroyed; natural values gone, many forever; and whole species of native Australian flora and fauna most likely wiped out. Some of them will never recover. Over 17 million hectares were burned across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, the ACT, Western Australia and South Australia.

We all know that the government were unprepared last bushfire season; it was quite evident. And the consequences were disastrous. To take just one example from the last catastrophic bushfire season: the use of the Australian defence forces. The Prime Minister's failures around defence were some of the most public. Let's not forget when the Prime Minister posted a polished video advertising that the government were deploying defence reservists to assist in bushfire areas. Unfortunately, he prioritised his shiny announcement video over informing Shane Fitzsimmons, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner, who found out about the massive influx of resources through the media. Mr Fitzsimmons said of the stunt:

All I can say is I wasn't aware of it, I found out about it via the media reports … It is fair to say it was disappointing and some surprise to hear about these things through public announcements. In the middle of what was one of our worst days this season with the second-highest number of concurrent emergency warning fires ever in the history of NSW.

Then we come to the aerial firefighting capacity. For years leading up to the last bushfire season, the National Aerial Firefighting Centre pleaded with the federal government to increase their annual funding, warning that bushfire seasons were only getting more intense. For years they were ignored, until last season when, finally, funding arrived. It came months after the bushfires had already begun. The federal government then announced the same funding three times—because we all know they love announcements.

I can appreciate that the government is taking some action to address their failures from last bushfire season—what happened last year can never, ever be allowed to happen again—but it's simply not enough. Unfortunately, we also know that the government are, once again, putting announcements over delivery in the lead-up to this natural disaster season, which is leaving us unprepared. In recent days Australia has experienced an extreme heatwave. Dozens of fires are now burning across the country. The Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC has predicted above-normal fire potential across New South Wales and Western Australia throughout December 2020 until February 2021. The Bureau of Meteorology has predicted a higher than average chance of cyclones in northern Australia, predicting also that the cyclone season will start earlier and be more intense.

And so I come to the government's Emergency Response Fund. Eighteen months ago the Prime Minister announced a $4 billion emergency response fund designed to help fund response, recovery and resilience measures in the lead-up to and following natural disasters. Eighteen months on, and not a single cent has been spent from that fund—not a single cent; not one project amount, not one job created and not one community protected. Once again, we bear witness to this Prime Minister's apparent addiction to the photo-op but not the follow-up.

The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements recently recommended that the federal government develop an Australian based aerial firefighting capability. It noted that Australia needs a sovereign aerial fleet, as we will not be able to continue relying on overseas support for much longer. This is, in large part, due to the fact that fire seasons globally are starting to overlap. The government have rejected this recommendation. They have said they are comfortable with the current arrangement. This was repeated by Minister Ruston in question time today in response to a question from Senator Chisholm. These arrangements have seen situations where a tiny state like Tasmania has spent $40 million on aircraft in the 2018-19 fire season alone, with contracts often having to be negotiated at the last minute and at the highest possible prices. The royal commission also noted that last year there were instances where requests for aerial assistance were not met because the aircraft were simply not available. The federal government are happy to announce the same funding three times, but they are not actually delivering the resources that Australian communities need and will continue to need over this warm summer season that, as I speak, we are starting to encounter.