Tuesday, 7 June 2022

Bushfire preparedness

Mr MEDDICK (Western Victoria) (19:22): (1954) My matter this evening is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, and the action I seek is for her to make appropriate changes to ensure that before, during and after any further planned burns, no matter the reason for them, local wildlife rescuers and carers along with Wildlife Victoria be informed, consulted and involved. This has become particularly important with the recent incident at Mount Richmond, where several koalas were burnt to death. We need to make sure this does not happen again. In this incident two koalas were found alive by rescuers severely burnt, in agony and vocalising their pain. They were beyond saving and had to be euthanised.

I toured the site on Saturday with departmental representatives, local rescuers and the CEO of Wildlife Victoria, Lisa Palma. What is apparent is that koalas and other wildlife were let down by an inadequate system that did not allow for the numbers of animals counted at the perimeter of the fire area to be extrapolated to consider the entire zone. This meant that those viewed on the edge were considered to be the only animals in the entire 214-plus hectares. The area is quite inaccessible in many places; however, in this day and age we have drone technology that has been employed highly successfully in every other area of forest management. This should have been made available to assess the population. I hope that the minister will now insist upon the use of that technology, as well as the involvement of Wildlife Victoria and their resources and local rescuers, throughout the entire process of any further planned burns in Victoria.