➡️ Read the full AgForce media release here: www.agforceqld.org.au/knowledgebase/article/AGF-01957/
The same major failings are repeated each large bushfire season and the subsequent inquiries, (that are run by government departments inquiring into other government departments) repeatedly fail to come up with the most glaring needs, that which is empowering local people, to use local knowledge and be the decision makers in defending their communities.
The RFBAQ submission to the 2018 Bushfire Review outlined many of the challenges faced and the need for landholder responsibility for fuel load and risk, empowering placed-based decision making and amending the Vegetation Management Act. None of these key needs were in the final report.
The draft amendments to the Fire Service Act 1990 that the government is now trying to ram through states that an incident controller in the future can only come from people with expertise in large scale structural fires and bushfires, specialist and technical rescue, response to disasters and hazmat. This means that going forward all incident controllers can only come from Fire and Rescue; not Rural Fire, where most large incidents happen. This one section completely disempowers landholders and brigade members who understand how fire moves through the environment.
Last week’s announcement that the soon to be formed Fire Department will move to a new massive centralised headquarters in Brisbane when the Rural Fire Brigades that defend 93% of Queensland have no new trucks, no training packages, no promised Rural Fire Board and no control over Rural Fire finances shows how far from the initial intent that this monster department has travelled.
In 1990 when Rural Fire Brigades were shanghaied into coming under the control of the Fire and Rescue Service the then Minister Mr Mackenroth told Parliament:
“One of the arguments already raised concerns the myth that these actions will create some kind of huge, all-powerful centralised bureaucracy which will leave any area outside Brisbane without a voice and impotent in the area of fire services. In fact, quite the opposite is true. With the establishment of these regions, there will actually be fewer people working out of the Brisbane headquarters. There will be no concentration of power in the city. The whole strategy is based around the autonomy of the new regions, which will operate in much the same way as the police regions do now.”
(Hansard, 20th March 1990)
A Parliamentary inquiry will allow for landholders, brigades, stakeholders and government departments to make submissions that will be visible to all.
The RFBAQ fully supports AgForce Queensland’s call for a Parliamentary Bushfire Inquiry.
