Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—The summer season represents a time for holidays and celebration for Australians. Unfortunately, it is also a time when we are most likely to suffer from natural disasters. The purpose of this statement is to update the House on arrangements implemented by the Commonwealth in preparation for this bushfire season which, as we heard at the end of question time, has regrettably well and truly started.

While states and territories have primary responsibility for dealing with natural disasters, under the Australian Emergency Management Arrangements, the Commonwealth can provide coordination functions, physical and financial assistance upon the request of states and territories. These requests often occur when effective response to a disaster is beyond the capacity of an individual jurisdiction. When it comes to bushfire preparation and response, the Commonwealth is committed to supporting the states and territories in their efforts.

The Commonwealth has worked tirelessly with the states and territories to help them bolster their preparations for this bushfire season. We have done so with the memory of the devastating 2009 Victorian bushfires in the front of our minds. They, of course, caused the greatest loss of life from bushfires since Federation. The Commonwealth is committed to assisting the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission. We welcomed the commission’s interim report and are implementing all the interim recommendations of the commission directed at the Commonwealth.

Continued above average temperatures are contributing to an early fire season this year, as we have quite obviously seen in Queensland and, indeed, if I could also recognise, in the fires that affected many people who live in northern New South Wales over the last week. As the Council of Australian Governments has recognised, climate change will increase the intensity and extent of many extreme weather events. Obviously, some impacts from climate change are unavoidable.

The government is determined to help ensure that Australia is resilient in the face of future natural disasters. We have adopted an integrated approach to managing emergencies and disasters across all levels of government, the private sector and the community. This comprehensive approach is designed to prepare Australia for all hazards that may arise and ensures that we implement measures to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies.

I will now outline the Commonwealth’s actions in each of these four categories.

Prevention

In terms of prevention, it is estimated that up to 50 per cent of all bushfires in Australia, are regrettably deliberately lit. In March this year I chaired a national forum to develop collaborative approaches to reduce bushfire arson in Australia. Following that forum, the Commonwealth drafted model laws with stronger, more consistent penalties for such offences—with prison sentences of up to 25 years. The government is strongly encouraging states and territories to adopt these model laws. We have also begun work in cooperation with relevant agencies to enhance training and procedures for bushfire arson prevention, investigation and public education.

Together with the states and territories, the Commonwealth is also developing a National Action Plan to Reduce Bushfire Arson, which will be considered at the November meeting of the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management.

Preparedness

In terms of preparedness, the Commonwealth has implemented a number of arrangements to support states and territories in their preparation for this bushfire season. Under the Rudd government’s new Natural Disaster Resilience Program, the Commonwealth has committed $110 million, over four years, to assist the states and territories to prepare for natural disasters. The program includes a $2 million national projects fund, increasing to $4 million from next year. That fund will support key projects of national significance.

Recognising the importance of working together, the Commonwealth has also focused on building clear communication channels between all levels of government. On 25 September this year, again as recommended in the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission’s interim report, the government conducted a pre-season emergency management operational briefing for states and territories. The briefing covered this season’s outlook for fires and also cyclones as well as Commonwealth support arrangements including resources available to states and territories during disasters. I am pleased to report that these briefings will now occur annually, and I thank the states and territories for their cooperation.

The Commonwealth is also upgrading the Wireless Priority Service System to provide priority access during times of network congestion caused by a disaster event for up to 30,000 users on a 3G network. The Commonwealth has also enacted legislation to confer civil immunity on United States firefighters who render assistance during the Australian bushfire season. This will facilitate the conclusion of a firefighter exchange agreement with the United States, currently being negotiated by Victoria. Those negotiations are being conducted on behalf of all states and territories. This is a good example of how governments can work together to achieve real results.

The Commonwealth has also invested significant time, working with the states and territories, to implement emergency warnings measures for this season. Based on fire industry requirements, the Bureau of Meteorology will incorporate a new scale of fire danger ratings into its fire weather and warning services, with a catastrophic (code red) category of fire. This measure implements recommendations of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission’s interim report and was endorsed at the extraordinary meeting of the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management on 25 September.

The Commonwealth has committed a total of over $26 million to assist the states and territories to develop a telephone based emergency warning capability. To underpin the system, the Commonwealth committed over $9 million for the establishment and ongoing operation of the Location Based Number Store, which is a secure, central database of telephone numbers that will underpin the system. This database is now operational and available for testing.

The Commonwealth has also committed $15 million for the establishment and operation of the National Emergency Warning System. The system is being developed by Victoria, and I welcome the announcement by the Victorian Minister for Police and Emergency Services that the system will be available after comprehensive testing, which I understand is taking place now. The system will be available by the end of November. The warning system will enable jurisdictions to send emergency warning messages to fixed-line telephones on the basis of service address and also to mobile telephones on the basis of billing address. Due to current technical limitations, the system will not be able to deliver warnings to mobile phones, based on the actual physical location of the user, in this coming bushfire season. To address this, the Commonwealth is working with the states and territories to research the feasibility of location based mobile phone technology. I am pleased to note that Victoria, again on behalf of the states and territories and with Commonwealth support and funding of $1.35 million, has sought information from the market about the possible technologies that are available to deliver that service. Information is requested by the end of this month and will be considered by the Council of Australian Governments in 2010.

The government has also established an ongoing forum of peak broadcast media organisations to facilitate improvements in the effectiveness and consistency of national arrangements between the government and the media for the broadcast of emergency warnings. The National Best Practice Guidelines for the Request and Broadcast of Emergency Warnings, which have been developed and endorsed by all participating bodies, are now forming the basis for work being undertaken by the states and territories to refine media agreements and arrangements at the local level in preparation for this bushfire season.

The Commonwealth is also working with jurisdictions, the CSIRO and the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre to assess intelligent remote fire detection systems. I want to acknowledge the valuable work and research undertaken by the member for McEwen, the Hon. Fran Bailey MP, into these technologies and recognise her presence in the House. A trial of relevant fire detection systems will be conducted this season, recognising that such technology, if proven and cost-effective, could improve our management of fires and better target community warnings.

The implementation of the Commonwealth Operational Response Coordination Arrangements provides a single ‘all-hazards’ crisis management and coordination point, for all of Australia, within my department. This will enable the Commonwealth, upon request, to coordinate the provision of support from other jurisdictions to a disaster affected jurisdiction. The Commonwealth can also provide a range of technical capabilities to help the states and territories respond to disasters. These include a full range of Defence capabilities which, although not specifically developed or held for emergency response, can be made available pursuant to the Defence Assistance to Civilian Communities program. In addition, Geoscience Australia also manages a satellite based monitoring system of fire hot spot data for use by the states and territories.

In the crucial area of aerial firefighting, the Commonwealth has committed an additional $12.8 million over four years for the National Aerial Fire Fighting Arrangements. This commitment increases the annual Commonwealth contribution to $14 million each year to provide greater access to aircraft and greater participation by smaller jurisdictions in those arrangements. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority also has two aircraft with infra-red surveillance capabilities to bolster state and territory resources. These combined resources are invaluable for firefighters in deploying resources in response to overnight changes in fire conditions.

The Commonwealth is also working closely with the states and territories to ensure that the triple zero emergency service operates effectively in crises. As agreed at the extraordinary meeting last month of the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management, the states and territories are reviewing their procedures for dealing with a surge in demand in their triple zero emergency call centres as occurs in the case of a crisis.

Triple zero connects emergency callers to fire, police or ambulance services. It is not a general information line. To reduce pressure on the triple zero service, the states and territories are working to reduce the number of non-emergency calls to triple zero during crises. My department is working with Telstra to develop a national protocol for activating ‘extreme event’ recorded voice announcements, which would redirect non-emergency triple zero callers to other information sources during extreme crises to leave the triple zero service available to deal with those who are genuinely facing an emergency. The Commonwealth is also working with industry to progressively limit calls from mobile phones that make repeated hoax calls to triple zero. The Commonwealth is also making additional call centre capability available to the states and territories for emergency information lines where their local capacity has been overwhelmed in a disaster.

The Commonwealth has robust arrangements in place to help individuals and communities recover from natural disasters.

These include:

• funding support through the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements that were described by the Acting Prime Minister at the end of question time,
• funding support to individuals through the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment,
• sharing of identity related information following a disaster, and
• helping locate people separated by an emergency through the National Registration and Inquiry System.

Following the tragedy of the Victorian bushfires, the Commonwealth government provided and continues to provide national leadership in the recovery effort. In total the Commonwealth is providing around $450 million to help affected communities rebuild and recover. This support has included direct financial assistance payments, assistance with funeral costs, an income recovery subsidy and the provision of mental health and counselling services.

The Commonwealth has also worked with the Victorian government in the clean up of fire damaged properties, a comprehensive case management service, small business and primary producer assistance, community hubs and the construction of memorials, amongst a number of other projects and programs targeted at supporting local communities in the response and recovery effort.

I would like to acknowledge the work of Minister Macklin and Parliamentary Secretary Shorten in that effort.

In the coming months, COAG will also review the Commonwealth’s disaster recovery framework, to ensure that it is appropriately adapted to help communities recover from emergencies. The Commonwealth will ensure that lessons learnt from the Black Saturday recovery effort will be reflected in this review. This unprecedented disaster must be used to strengthen recovery arrangements in preparation for the increasing threat posed by factors such as climate change.

A simple and flexible suite of response measures at Commonwealth, state and territory level should be the overarching objective, including direct emergency financial assistance, counselling and information services, and case management.

The Commonwealth, through COAG, the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management, or MCPEM, and at agency and operational levels is working cooperatively to assist the states and territories to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from natural disasters.

To this end, I have written to my state and territory colleagues seeking their advice, if possible by 23 October 2009, as to any other measures within the Commonwealth’s responsibility that may require the Commonwealth’s consideration in this coming bushfire and cyclone season.

The government remains committed to assisting states and territories to continually improve their emergency management arrangements and capabilities in order to effectively build individual and community resilience to disasters.

I thank honourable members for their attention. I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the member for Farrer to speak for 17 minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Ms Ley speaking in reply to the ministerial statement for a period not exceeding 17 minutes.

Question agreed to.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to provide the coalition’s response to the Attorney-General’s statement on preparations for this coming bushfire season. As the summer season approaches, our attention is again turned to the grim reality that this is a time when natural disasters such as bushfires are more likely to occur. Fires burning in central Queensland, as mentioned by the Acting Prime Minister at the end of question time, as well as emerging fire fronts in New South Wales and Western Australia, demand from us as members and senators our continuing attention and support.

We should never forget the communities that were devastated by the worst natural disaster to ever touch this nation. We should never forget the 173 people who died in the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria on 7 February this year. As with every crisis, particularly natural disasters, the important thing is that we learn from what has happened and make sure that we do everything we can to prevent it from happening again. Our response at both state and federal level must be around fuel reduction, preparedness and our emergency responses.

Whilst emergency management including bushfire mitigation and preparedness activities such as fuel reduction and the issuing of emergency warnings is primarily the responsibility of state and territory governments, the coalition believes it is important that the Commonwealth remains committed to supporting communities to build their disaster resilience.

On 17 August we heard from the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission interim report that many mistakes were made and more could be done to prepare Victoria for a natural disaster of this magnitude. I would like to take this opportunity once again to commend Commissioner Teague and his fellow commissioners on their important work over the last eight months.

The Attorney-General mentioned the outstanding contribution and the research of the member for McEwen. We also acknowledge the member for McEwen’s efforts as her electorate suffered the most on Black Saturday. The member for McEwen has worked extremely hard in these last months identifying and investigating methods and technologies to make our communities safer. Among these technologies is FireWatch, which uses technology developed by the German Aerospace Research Institute for NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission. The member for McEwen, I understand, travelled to Germany earlier this year to see first-hand the digital sensing technology in operation and, on her return, strongly advocated an Australian trial this summer.

Comprehensive fuel reduction programs have been another area of vital research by the member for McEwen. A visit to the Sintra region of Portugal, an area that experienced fires of similar devastation in 2003 and 2007, has reinforced in the member for McEwen’s mind the importance of fuel reduction programs, not just burn-offs but thinning vegetation and clearing roadsides in order to limit fire intensity. This is a critical message. The great point about the Sintra model put in place following their fires is that the region forms a World Heritage listed area. This is an important lesson—that is, that environmental outcomes and the maintenance of biodiversity in the bush, and fuel reduction, need not be mutually exclusive.

I would also like to acknowledge the member for La Trobe, who has put forward recommendations for action in his electorate to prepare for the upcoming bushfire season. The member for La Trobe recommended a major fuel reduction campaign in the Dandenong Ranges as a top priority. Thus far, there has been very little action from the state Victorian Labor government on this front. It is well known that the Dandenong Ranges is a very high fire threat area, one of the most fire prone in the world.

The member for La Trobe tells me that he has also put forward a recommendation for fire refuges in schools. Many of the schools in his area are steeling themselves for the coming fire season and are really anxious. The schools in the electorate of La Trobe have only recently been assessed as needing either major or minor upgrades to their shelters. Some which have been assessed as needing major upgrades will receive minor upgrades or nothing at all. I have been informed that many of the school principals in the member for La Trobe’s electorate are desperate for more assistance. The only major change at this point in time is that some trees have been removed from schoolyards.

The coalition urges the Australian government to work with its state counterparts to protect communities and take the actions that state governments need to take at their level for safety during the coming fire season. We do support the measures that the Attorney-General has put forward and we thank the Australian government for their ongoing engagement with this issue. We will support their continuing development.

However, these measures on their own, no matter how good they are, can be overwhelmed by inaction by states and excessive fuel loads on the ground. In Victoria the call is for fuel reduction burning at the higher levels of the 1970s and 1980s. For example, in 1980-81, 477,000 hectares of Victorian public forest was fuel reduced. This stands in stark contrast to the Department of Sustainability and Environment’s current burn target of 130,000 hectares a year—a target that is only occasionally achieved. Given that Victoria has over eight million hectares of forest, I fear this represents only a modest commitment to preventative bushfire management.

We note with concern the statement by the Attorney-General that there is ‘above normal fire potential across much of southern Australia’. That is something that worries us all. The Attorney said:

… climate change will increase the intensity and geographic extent of many extreme weather events. Obviously, some impacts from climate change are unavoidable.

Whilst I do not disagree with this statement, we must never use the present or future danger of climate change as a reason not to do everything possible at all levels of government to reduce the risk of fire. The most fundamental responsibility for any government is the protection of its citizens. All state governments and authorities must look carefully at the findings of the royal commission and learn from the mistakes as we approach this summer’s fire season. The coalition is committed to the continual improvement of the measures outlined by the Attorney in terms of improved capability and emergency response and the provision of grants through the states and territories. We pledge our full support to whatever is required at Commonwealth level to effectively build individual and community resilience to bushfire disasters.