Thursday, 6 February 2025

Bushfire preparedness

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:07): (1400) My adjournment matter for the Minister for Environment concerns the alarming report by forestry consultant John Cameron and bushfire scientist David Packham entitled Melbourne’s Fire Risk Matches LA. While on this topic, however, I also want to pay tribute to the communities in my electorate which continue to be affected by this year’s bushfire season. I spoke in a previous sitting week about the incredible work volunteers do to protect our property and lives out in the country, and the more recent fires in the eastern Grampians and Little Desert National Park around Dimboola and Nhill have seen us further indebted.

The report I referenced makes stark reading. Its timing is deliberate. The recent impact of bushfire on urban areas in California should be a warning to us all. Fire does not always happen in remote, sparsely populated areas. I would never wish a fire on anyone, but if there is to be any positive taken from the fires in the Los Angeles area, it should be a powerful warning to us that we cannot be complacent.

On this note, I was interested to see Forest Fire Management Victoria’s (FFMV) chief fire officer, Chris Hardman, write recently:

… you should know that Victoria is prepared and that our land and fire agencies have worked all year to reduce bushfire risk.

We are prepared and ready to respond.

As I did many times in the previous Parliament, I want to put on record my serious scepticism about the way Forest Fire Management Victoria has changed the fuel load reduction target regime recommended by the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission (VBRC). Because of very high forest fuel levels, Victoria is a ticking time bomb. To quote the report:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

Fuel reduction is well short of the Victoria bushfires royal commission recommendation of at least 5 per cent of the forest per annum on average. Fuel reduction has averaged 1.6 per cent per annum since the introduction of the Safer Together policy in 2015.

FFMV has failed to meet its own risky fuel-driven fire risk targets in five districts every year for the last five years. metropolitan, Yarra, Latrobe, Midlands and Ovens. Three of these – metro, Yarra and Midlands – expose outer Melbourne to a catastrophic scenario worse than Los Angeles in 2025 and East Kilmore in 2009.

Minister, the action I seek is a return to the fuel load reduction targets required by the VBRC. But despite being below target for many years in five districts, FFMV completed only 67 per cent of its planned fuel reduction and only 26 per cent of its priority fuel reduction over the last two years. Some priority.