Lowan electorate bushfires
Emma KEALY (Lowan) (16:34): I again urge the Premier and the Allan Labor government to make a referral to the inspectorate-general of emergency management to undertake an inquiry into the bushfires over last summer in my electorate, specifically around the Grampians bushfires and the Little Desert bushfire. There are critical issues that have gone unaddressed and unanalysed as a result of those fires, whether it is around the coordination of the emergency response, the planned burns which happened during the fires and which took out large expanses of old-growth areas of the forest and the devastating impact on our wildlife as well as our bird life. Whether it is about how we manage our parks and forests so that we can avoid these large-scale fires into the future, there are so many people with different viewpoints who want to have their say, and it is clear we can manage our parks in a much better way.
So I again urge the Premier to make that referral to IGEM so that all locals can have their say and we can manage our fires better into the future.
I also urge the Allan Labor government to expand and extend the business bushfire recovery grant. Unfortunately, there are many businesses which are ineligible for that grant or simply have not had the time to apply. The goalposts are too narrow, the period that has been selected to show a loss of revenue is over a much different period than the one the bushfires impacted and it is really putting too much pressure on our businesses. Please, Premier Allan, support our businesses and extend that funding grant.