Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Bushfire preparedness

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (19:13): (327) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Emergency Services. Earlier this month we learned that Victoria’s aerial water-bombing capacity has been slashed ahead of summer, which is pretty scary as we head into another period of El Niño. Leaked documents from Emergency Management Victoria and obtained by the Age suggest Victoria’s aerial firefighting capacity has been cut by about 40,000 litres compared to last summer. This was supported by data from the National Aerial Firefighting Centre, while six other pilots and commanders within the sector also allege that surge capacity is going backwards. This report comes just a few years after the horrific Black Summer bushfires, which we all remember, and a few weeks after what NASA called the hottest July in human history. Gutting water-bombing capacity this year would be catastrophically short-sighted as the climate crisis begins to escalate.

The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements called on all governments to expand aerial firefighting fleets, and Victorian Labor at the time was broadly supportive of this. Yet according to the contract data there are currently just 32 Victorian-based aircraft able to drop water or retardant, compared to 38 last year – so 32 compared to 38 last year – 40 in 2021 and 35 back in 2019. So we have got fewer than in 2019, and we have actually gone backwards since Black Summer. Because Labor contracts these helicopters and vehicles rather than buying them outright, we also learned that Victoria will lose access to a former military Chinook helicopter due to a contract dispute between the operator and the Labor government.

I know that Emergency Management Victoria disputes some of this analysis, but I think that Victorians deserve to know exactly what is going on here, after these reports. It is important because early detection of bushfires and putting them out early will become increasingly important in protecting us from the increased risk of bushfires due to climate change. I know the government likes to talk about their planned burning program, but this comes with significant impacts too – we cannot burn all the bush across the state to get rid of bushfire risk completely, and we should not. We want to preserve nature but also protect ourselves from bushfires. We can actually do both if we have well-resourced early detection for bushfires and enough waterbombing capacity to put fires out when they start. If we do not have this, we are walking into a disaster.

The action I seek is for the minister to urgently release the updated figures on how much waterbombing capacity we have in litres and in aircraft numbers in Victoria, going into this summer. New South Wales buys water bombers outright, and really Victoria needs to start doing the same and to also significantly boost our aerial firefighting capacity to protect us from what will inevitably, unfortunately, come over the next few summers.