Ms BADGER – I have a couple of questions now on Fire and Emergency services. Now that a Fire and Emergency services commissioner has been appointed, do they have the powers of employment under the State Service Act? Do they also have the same or greater statutory powers as the chief fire officer?
Mr ELLIS – To provide a bit of background on this one, Ms Badger, we’ve just announced on Friday the next tranche of the reforms that we’re looking to bring in as part of the fire and emergency services act, or the Fire Service Act as it’s currently called. A key part of that is bringing together our Fire and SES into the one organisation. That unification is strongly supported among our first responders. By being able to do that, we’ll be able to enhance the capability that we’ll have right across the service and to be able to respond to different emergencies.
Until those legislative reforms come in, that needs to happen so that we can enable the full scale of powers that we envisage the commissioner will have. The commissioner will be the leader of both parts of the service. We’ll have a deputy commissioner for Fire and deputy commissioner for SES. That will ensure that we’ll be able to progress that. As part of the reforms, we’d initially envisaged that the commissioner of fire and emergency services would then be advised by an advisory committee. We received feedback from stakeholders as part of the legislation that we went out for consultation last year. The stakeholders still want to see a full commission model – a state fire and emergency services commission.
The commissioner has a range of different responsibilities and that includes things like the PCBU, person conducting business undertakings, I think that’s right. With the commitment to maintaining the current full commission model, there will be some different powers for the commission versus the commissioner than what we previously envisioned with a commissioner that has an advisory committee below them. I might look to the commissioner if there’s anything further you want to update.
Ms BADGER – Before you do, sorry, I was wondering if the intent was still to have powers of employment under the State Service as well at this point.
Ms ADAMS – In terms of employment powers, both the TFES Commissioner and I as secretary do not have employment responsibility for SES threes and fours. That’s the head of the State Service. So we don’t have that employment responsibility or function ourselves. In terms of SES ones and twos, that’s for the secretary. All other employment functions are delegated to the TFES Commissioner.
Ms BADGER – In the state Budget there is money allocated to the department for emergency risk management and disaster mitigation. What specific programs in terms of climate risks does this relate to? I’m also assuming part of that would be for the national aviation fleet for bushfires. When are you expecting that these would be arriving? Are they still on the same three‑month contract as they were in previous years?
Mr ELLIS – We’re making major investments in terms of climate change mitigation. It’s part of the reason why I’m being so passionate around the need to reform fire and emergency services in Tasmania. We have an old model that was set up in 1979, well before you and I and the Chair were born. It’s no longer truly fit for purpose when we have a future of more severe and more frequent natural disasters. I’m not sure why everyone’s laughing – have I said something that offends? I don’t know. That change is important. It’s part of the reason why we want to see continued growth in our capability. It’s also part of the reason why we need to invest at the front end for our communities too.
You’ll know the Latrobe Flood Mitigation project, potentially. That’s a big investment that’s been made jointly between the federal government, the state, and the local council. That’s really come to fruition now. That will make a major impact in terms of protecting the town of Latrobe.
I spoke before about our need to do fuel reduction burning. I know that different members on the committee have been from parties that have a complicated relationship with fuel reduction burning, but it is important. We’ve reduced the risk in Tasmania by about 25 per cent since we started it 10 years ago. Those investments are key. I’ll pass to the Commissioner of Fire and Emergency Services and the team if there’s anything further you want to add.
Mr SMITH – Thanks, minister. I want to bring up to speed about the aircraft that we contract. We work with NAFC, the National Aircraft Firefighting Centre, which is a national body. We procure 15 aircraft into the state, roughly nine helicopters and six fixed wings. They complement our strategy of weight of attack. Over the last six or seven years, the weight of attack mantra for our crews of putting as many resources onto a fire as quickly as possible has proven very successful. To complement that is the aircraft, of which we’ve got those 15 national ones, but we’ve also got roughly 25 call‑when‑needed across the state. They supplement the contracted aircraft for those high‑risk days or when we don’t have those aircraft in the state, like today. They will go to our call when needed and stand those aircraft up to provide that critical resource.
Ms BADGER – Is there a rough date when they’ll be arriving for the summer season, or until it’s needed?
Mr SMITH – Our operational teams are monitoring the conditions daily at the moment. We had our state‑based briefing last week. The conditions probably will trend towards those national aircraft coming into the state later in the year, so probably early or mid‑December. We’ll have them in place for the Christmas/New Year high risk period. They’ll be in place for 60 to 90 days depending on the conditions. If we need to extend, we will.
Mr ELLIS – I might look to the Director of SES too around some of the flood mapping work that is very important.
Mr CLARK – Climate change predictions indicate that rainfall and flooding events in Tasmania are likely to become more frequent and more intense. SES is working to increase Tasmania’s resilience to these risks by delivering the Tasmanian Flood Mapping Project. The project is jointly funded by the Tasmanian and Australian governments and is delivering a comprehensive and consistent set of strategic maps that show the current and future flood hazards across the state. These maps are being used to undertake state-wide flood risk assessments that will identify the current and future flood risks to a range of values across the state.
This flood mapping was used in the most recent severe weather event that we saw in recent weeks. It enables us to look, and use it as a predictive model to where flooding is going to occur. It’s also the basis of the community flood guides and community flood plans that are used across local government areas across Tasmania.
Ms BADGER – So, all of those flood mapping scenarios are public for people in the community to be able to be informed and educated?
Mr CLARK – Yes, the data layer will be loaded onto LIST Tasmania, and publicly available.
