Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak this evening with respect to the bushfire that is currently burning in Tasmania down in the Derwent Valley, the brave crews who are fighting that and the chaotic situation surrounding communities in that area. I would like to speak this evening about bushfires and about some of the myths surrounding the Greens being responsible for bushfires.

This has virtually evolved into urban myth over time. I caught up with my predecessor, Dr Bob Brown, only recently and had a coffee in Salamanca Place and he said to me that recently he was at the blues festival down in Cygnet, and while he was lining up for some food he heard four people behind him. One of the guys lining up spoke up very loudly and said, 'Maybe we should burn down Bob Brown's property and see how he likes it.' Obviously, Bob is pretty quick on his feet, and when he was leaving he went up to them and said, 'I'll remember you in a line-up,' and he walked off. I know he was quite shaken by that comment, because the fear and the hatred that is quite often directed to the Greens—the idea that we are somehow responsible for horrendous bushfires, firestorms that take life and destroy property—is quite sickening. I will get to where I think the source of that is very shortly.

I have gone to great lengths in the last three or four weeks to try and debunk this myth in the media and have put out statements highlighting current Greens policies which support fuel reduction burns and hazard management. The reason that I have taken a particular interest in this is twofold—

Senator Fierravanti-Wells interjecting—

I did not think we got interruptions during these types of speeches, but correct me if I am wrong.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, we actually just go through the process. I will make sure that the interruptions are in line.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. Firstly, the very first campaign that I ran for the Greens was Windermere, the Legislative Council campaign in 2009. The day that I launched my campaign was Black Saturday, 7 February 2009. The only thing worse than seeing the footage—the disclosure, the horror of the lives that were lost and the property damage—was actually being blamed for the bushfires as I doorknocked and got around and met communities. I have been very cognisant of this sensitivity in the community towards the party that I am currently representing in the Senate.

The other issue is that I happened to be down on the east coast at Bicheno, where my family has a shack, during the recent bushfires. I consider myself part of that community in many ways—I know a lot of people there. I also got to witness firsthand the angst, the emotion and the frustration of the community there—and also the damage that it sowed. I wanted to make it very clear here today, as I did during motions today, that the Greens do support fuel reduction burns. We have had a longstanding policy supporting fuel reduction burns where appropriate—selective fuel reduction burns that reduce the risk of fires to communities. This policy is often ignored, particularly by journalists and by various Liberal politicians in my state of Tasmania and, I understand, here in the Senate prior to my time, who constantly harp about my party being somehow responsible for the loss of life caused by bushfires.

There are a couple of other things I would like to discuss tonight. One is the difference between fuel reduction burns and forestry regeneration burns. Forestry regeneration burns are part of the industrial-scale forestry that we see particularly after clear-felling of forests. They are designed to grow biomass to increase production as quickly as possible. This is the exact opposite of fuel reduction burns, which are designed to selectively reduce biomass in a forest. Forests are very complex ecosystems. They are not all the same. Some forests cannot be burnt effectively using reduction methods because of moisture content, for example, or the type of species. But some forests can be, and some have effectively been burnt over a number of years to reduce the fire hazard risk. As I witnessed firsthand in the area south of Bicheno, the damage that can be done by wildfires once they get a hold in areas that have not burnt out is quite horrendous.

The Greens have not only had a longstanding policy of supporting fuel reduction burns, which is often misconstrued as opposition to regeneration burns—often deliberately by those who want to misrepresent our position particularly for their own political gain, sowing the seeds of hatred and anger in my home state of Tasmania. We have also taken actions on the ground to try to reduce the risk of bushfire damage. A good example was in the Tasmanian budget when, in negotiating the 2010-11 budget, we managed to secure with Labor an additional recurrent $16 million allocation to the Parks and Wildlife Service for the vital role it plays in reserve management, including fuel reduction burns. We have also supported contingency payments to Forestry Tasmania on the condition that the funds only pay for non-commercial functions, which include fuel load management. Those two actions were opposed by the Liberals in Tasmania—and they have the gall to post six-year-old media releases on websites and Facebook pages accusing us of being responsible for fires because we oppose forestry industrial-scale regeneration burns, which have nothing to do with fuel regeneration burns.

Another thing I would also like to talk is the idea that, somehow, lock-ups or conservation outcomes create more danger of bushfire hazards. It has now been firmly established that the recent bushfires in Tasmania occurred 80 per cent on private land and most of the severe damage was from monoculture plantations burning, not from forest reserves that have been put aside, apparently, by the Greens' conservation actions and are causing severe concern and risk to local communities. The reality on the ground is quite the opposite. Mixed endemic species in Tasmania have been replaced with monoculture plantations, and a lot of that has been driven by managed investment schemes and industrial-scale forestry which, again, has been strongly supported in this house by the Liberal Party. Another cross in the box.

Another myth I would like to debunk is that fuel reduction burns do not work. I was fortunate to have been able see an area called Half Moon Bay which was totally destroyed. It looked like an atomic bomb had been dropped on it. All the houses were lost and the people had escaped with three or four minutes to spare. All the wild animals that made it to the beach got to the beach alive but suffocated. The whole beach was littered with dead animals because there was no oxygen in that area. That fire, only six kilometres away, was totally unstoppable: no firebreak, no amount of back-burning would have succeeded. That information came directly from the TFS at the community briefing. What stopped that fire from getting to the Freycinet Peninsula—which is, without a doubt, one of the jewels in the crown of my state—was that Parks and Wildlife had recently done a fuel reduction burn in that area, the fire burnt down on itself and they managed to contain it.

That is a really good example of how strategic fuel reduction burns, done with the proper resources, can help reduce fire risks. I have absolutely no doubt that they work when done properly, but we do not have the resources in place to do it where we need to do it. I totally understand the frustration of private landowners who have issues with liability, lack of resourcing, lack of expertise and lack of experience. We have lost a lot of the knowledge that we used to have in our forestry industry, for example, about how to do these things regularly.

The Premier of Tasmania, Lara Giddings, is having an independent bushfire inquiry and the Greens intend to make a submission, giving as much evidence and information as we can to that inquiry, and to play a role in future fire hazard reduction, just as we have constructively in Tasmania in the last few years in government with Labor. We also look forward to the Senate inquiry into extreme weather events and how we can get additional funding around the country for this very issue.