Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Watching Senator Molan's contribution, I finally grasped why this government has been unable to act in the interests of Australians in regional areas. He is fixed in the past, stuck in his views, unable to recognise that times have changed, that the climate has changed, that the requirements for the effective management of country have changed, that the requirements for effective firefighting have so fundamentally changed. The only response from Senator Molan is the same as the response from the Prime Minister: it's to bluster, it's to obfuscate, it's to point the finger at somebody else. It's never: 'Take charge, take responsibility and act.'

There are many communities this week who are beginning their one-year commemoration of the bushfire season coming to them. People in Braidwood are doing that today. For people in Braidwood the fires started this week 12 months ago, but they went all the way through to February—some people having their properties burnt out multiple times. What those communities want to hear is not bluster, not ideology, not politicisation, not pointing the finger at the states, and not someone saying, 'I don't hold a hose, mate'. What they want to see is action, leadership and effective coordination from the Commonwealth.

The Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC outlook for December to February notes that while the east coast has experienced wetter than average conditions since last summer, normal fire conditions still persist because of long-term dryness. Half of New South Wales west of the Dividing Range will experience above-normal fire conditions this summer. While the ideal conditions for cropping and pasture growth are great news for our farmers, they create the ideal conditions in mid to late summer for very dangerous, fast-moving grassfires. The ACT and southern Monaro will experience similar conditions. Drought conditions persist in southern Western Australia. As summer progresses the South West, the Swan Coastal Plain and parts of the Wheatbelt and Esperance Plains will experience higher than normal fire potential. Nowhere in the country will experience below normal fire potential. What does 'normal' mean? Normal means that, somewhere in Australia over the coming summer, people will lose their homes to fire, businesses will be destroyed and, in the worst cases, lives will be lost.

The summer of 1974-75 was a normal fire season and 117 million hectares burned. The summer of 1984-85 was a normal fire season: in New South Wales alone 3½ million hectares burned, 40,000 head of sheep and cattle perished, and four people were killed. The summers of 1993-94 and also 1998-99 were normal: in all, 19 people were killed and scores of houses were burned to the ground. The summer of 2002-03 was a normal fire season: four people perished and 488 homes were burned to the ground right here in Canberra. The summer of 2008-09 was a normal fire season and 173 people died on Black Saturday, 7 February 2009. The summer of 2015-16 was a normal fire season. It was the most destructive season since 2008-09. Nine people were killed, nearly 1,000 buildings were destroyed and the fires had a catastrophic impact on Tasmania's World Heritage areas. The summer of 2013-14 was a normal season, but the alarm bells were well and truly ringing this time. It was in only October 2013 when two people died in the Blue Mountains, 208 homes were destroyed and 86,000 hectares, including World Heritage areas, burned. These are the 'normal' seasons that are becoming increasingly infrequent; above-normal fire conditions are the new normal. How much more unnecessary death and destruction will there have to be before this government gets out of its Hawaii state of mind? There is almost nobody outside the Morrison government who doesn't think that Australia should have its own national, sovereign, aerial firefighting fleet. Go to the main street of Braidwood, the pub in Cobargo, a supermarket in Taree or the Rural Fire Service in Nowra and try to find a single person who doesn't think—doesn't know!—that Scott Morrison's job isn't to produce television ads glorifying action and trying to obscure the fact that he got caught out refusing to come back from his overseas holiday while houses were being burnt out and the country needed whatever leadership he was capable of providing. And you won't find a soul who doesn't think that we need a national, sovereign aerial firefighting fleet.

As in every case where the issue is about the government's responsibility to keep Australians safe, the Morrison government think it's the states' responsibility. You can hear them up in the back rows there; whenever these issues become uncomfortable they point to the states. Well, I can tell you that bushfire fighting is a national emergency, a national crisis, and it requires national leadership and a national response. Apparently for Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister, the government has no role to play other than to offer paltry, late, inadequate funding announcements with no follow-up, just spin. It took 12 hours for the Prime Minister's office to produce a slick social media ad at the height of the crisis, when the Prime Minister was trying to run from his responsibility. All of this year it's been 'clear as' that a national, sovereign air fleet is required, yet there's been no action from the Commonwealth government.

The Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee inquiry into last summer's bushfires has heard compelling evidence that a national aerial firefighting fleet must be a high priority of the national government. The Prime Minister himself gave support for the proposition when, on 4 January this year, he said:

… what we need are water bombers that meet the technical and specific requirements of the deployment in Australia. It's not a matter of just trying to hustle up some planes from somewhere around the world. What you need is the precise asset to deal with the situation in Australia.

That's what he said, but they were just more empty words; there was no delivery. That's exactly what a national aerial firefighting fleet would do—it would meet our specific technical requirements; it would be there all of the time as a precise asset to deal with the situation in Australia. But, of course, all that people in regional Australia have had from this Prime Minister is empty words and avoidance.

Rather than each state and territory sourcing its own aerial firefighting fleet, it would be far more efficient and effective to build a national capability for all Australians—one that's capable of moving between the states and territories over the course of a bushfire season, one that's capable of responding early to fires that historically have been left to burn out of control in wilderness areas, because those areas are inaccessible, and have then turned into frightening, devastating fires like the one that enveloped the community of Cobargo a little less than 12 months ago.

This is a government without a strategy for anything. It's a government that points the finger and bludges off the states and territories. It is never capable of doing its job and exercising its responsibility in the interests of all Australians. You lot are never capable of doing anything but pointing the finger at everybody else.