Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I intend to only make a brief contribution on this report, which I have not read, but I listened very carefully to the member for Murchison’s contribution, simply to observe that the planet is getting hotter. The fire seasons are becoming closer together and more intense. This summer, given we have just been through the hottest year in recorded history in Australia, is going to be extreme. We had places on the mainland with temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius two weeks ago before winter had ended.
As a parliament, as a community, we are going to need to get really serious about funding our emergency services. The extraordinary work that they do now is in a funding climate which is restricted, insufficient and limits the capacity to recruit, retain, train and have the necessary equipment to deal with what is coming. I understand that notions such as fire levies are politically hot. I get that, but at some level, sometime soon we are going to have to get serious about funding our emergency services and that is both The TFS and the SES, which is always there in times of trouble.
Ms Forrest – As we have seen in the last couple weeks.
Ms O’CONNOR – As we have seen in the last couple of weeks, with biblical floods, power out to thousands of homes. The SES can be counted on every time and so can our TFS, but we need to resource them properly. We need to snap out of this complacency that says business as usual at a time of accelerating global heating is anywhere near good enough, because it is not. It is putting our communities at risk. It is putting infrastructure at risk; properties and places like the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and our parks and reserves.
We have relied too long on importing excellent firies from interstate when our state is burning. The question we need to ask ourselves – and the minister should be asking himself – is: what happens when they are burning at the same time? We are not going to be able to rely on interstate firefighters for very much longer.
It is regrettable there has not been the political courage to have a fire service levy in place or some other increased sustainable funding stream for our TFS, but also to support the SES and our parks firefighters. This is an issue we have got to get real about and we have to do it quickly. We should be having this discussion. I am sure it will come up at Estimates.
In the lead-up to what is not going to be the kind of summer we all looked forward to when we were kids – and I hope I am wrong, and it may well be the coolest summer that we experience going forward – we have a responsibility to get serious about funding our emergency service.
