Darren Chester MP: In seconding the motion from the member for Nicholls, I commend him for bringing the House’s attention to the terrible events that occurred in Victoria over the January period. Now, we do live in a very fire-prone environment in Victoria, and the conditions in the north-eastern and western parts of the state have been very dry. I want to commend the volunteers and the agencies involved in the suppression work and in the immediate relief and recovery efforts as well, and extend my condolences to those who have lost property in those fire events.
We need to be doing more to front-end our efforts around prevention, around mitigation and around resilience when it comes to managing bushfire in the environment. We do live in a fire-prone environment in Victoria, and the risk of out-of-control blazes and the damage they can do to properties, to lives and to native animals need to be properly understood. I invite those listening to think about the components of these catastrophic events. To have a fire of this magnitude, you obviously need some sort of ignition point, and there will always be ignition points. It could be a lightning strike, it could be an accident, it could be equipment failure or it could be some idiot with a match. You also need dry, windy conditions. And low and behold, in Victoria, in summer we will have days that are dry and windy. But you also need a fuel load and that is the essence of the motion before the House today—the question of fuel load and mitigation and prevention activities.
The only thing we can really control when it comes to bushfires is the temperature associated with the fuel load. If we manage the fuel load, we can just turn down the severity, turn down the temperature a bit so the damage to the environment, the damage to properties, the damage to people trying to fight these fires is minimised. We have to do more to reduce the fuel load, particularly on public land in Victoria. I’ve said it before that to do that you need more boots and fewer suits. That’s more boots on the ground doing practical environmental work right throughout the year and fewer suits, fewer suits in Canberra and Melbourne making excuses for why the work can’t be done.
So I encourage the Victorian government think very, very carefully about this simple proposition: more boots, fewer suits, and undertake the fuel reduction work to keep our communities safe because people and native animals die in poorly maintained forests. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again because of the neglect of the bush.
One point in the motion by the member for Nicholls which is also worth reflecting on is that the shutdown of the sustainable native hardwood timber industry in Victoria has limited the capacity to fight bushfires in the state.
Sam Birrell MP: Hear Hear!
Darren Chester MP: Bingo—bingo! The member for Nicholls is spot on, because these were the skilled workers in the bush with the equipment that we relied on to keep us safe. In an act of absolute political bastardry—ideology gone mad—the Labor-Greens in Victoria combined to shut down the native hardwood timber industry, and our communities are less safe as a direct result of that policy decision. So I call on the Victorian parliament—the Liberals and the Nationals, I wish you all the best in the lead-up to next election—if you get that opportunity, restore the native hardwood timber industry to help keep our communities safe.
Now, finally, I want to reflect just on one other point. I do admire locals who manage to maintain their passion and enthusiasm for practical environmental management, even in the face of all this hostility from the Labor-Greens in Melbourne. And one of those locals is a fellow by the name of John Mulligan. John is 94 and he’s just launched his new book called Our Mismanaged Forests, which draws on his decades of experience of living and working in the bush. Now, John is a survivor of the 1939 Black Friday bushfires. He’s seen, right throughout East Gippsland, all the major fire events which have impacted our community over the nine decades of his life. In his book he highlights again the consequences of accumulated fuel loads and the lack of consistent fuel management and fuel reduction burns in our community, and also the importance of adopting some of the practices of the Indigenous people who were here for thousands of years, long before whitefellas turned up, and who were using firestick technology to actually reduce the fuel loads. So John Mulligan advocates for communities to learn to live with good fire in the environment as a means of reducing the risk of these mega-fires which do so much damage.
In closing, I thank the volunteers. I thank those who’ve done so much to help our community recover. But I call on the Victorian government to please do more to reduce the fuel load on public land in Victoria.