AS the ACT marks the 20th anniversary of the Canberra Bushfires today (January 18), the local firefighters’ union says the ACT’s Emergency Services Agency (ESA) has failed to learn the lessons from the tragedy in which four lives were lost and 500 houses razed.
Greg McConville, the United Firefighters Union’s ACT secretary said: “After the Canberra bushfires destroyed nearly 500 homes and took four lives, the ACT’s Emergency Services Agency has still failed to learn the lessons of 2003.
“ACT Fire and Rescue remains short of equipment and trucks. The Acton Fire Station promised in 2021 to remain vacant block of land, and organisations set up to protect Canberrans from bushfires have been scrapped.
“Despite the near disastrous incidents of defective fire trucks during the 2003 Canberra Fires, the newest fire trucks procured for ACT Fire and Rescue suffer from the same faults of flammable plastic air intakes and unprotected brake lines, leaving firefighters and the community no better protected.”
This in contrast to Emergency Services Minister Mick Gentleman’s assertion today that the ACT government had undertaken “significant reflection” and worked to learn from the lessons from the 2003 bushfires and implement a range of actions to ensure the territory was better prepared for bushfire and natural disasters.
“The community should be confident knowing that our emergency services agencies are more prepared for a bushfire emergency than ever before.,” he said.
“Our emergency response to the Orroral Valley bushfire, storms and the COVID-19 pandemic show how the lessons learnt over the last 20 years have been implemented by the ACT Government and by our community.”
McConville, also claimed that the ACT was desperately short of firefighters.
“Between 2013 and mid-2016, no firefighters were recruited at all. In the 2018/19 financial year, only six were recruited,” he said.
“That’s meant that firefighters continue to undertake unacceptable levels of overtime, and firefighters are being pressured into not taking their accrued leave to cover the gaps.
“Canberra latest recruit firefighters have also not been paid correctly since their graduation in December.
“Firefighters also have difficulty accessing training, with mandatory skills maintenance across 22 components of firefighter training having not been undertaken.”
“Even as the ESA failed to address the priorities critical to protecting Canberran’s safety, it has rapidly increased its own staffing and resources.”
Mr McConville said important bushfire consultative bodies created to strengthen the ACT’s response and resilience to bushfires had been abolished without explanation.
“The Emergency Services Operational Review Group was established to bring together biannually representatives of all emergency services, staff and volunteers. However, without any announcement, it appears to have been abolished and has not been met since November 2020,” he said.
“The Bushfire Council was abolished in 2021 against the will of its members, including rural landholders and the Bush Fire Abatement Zone recommended by the McLeod report, and the Coronial inquest was also abolished.
“Unforgivably, the Coroner’s inquiry into the 2019 fires remains incomplete and will not reconvene until April, 2023.
“The community should not have to wait three years to receive answers about how it came to be that 37% of the ACT’s land area was reduced to cinders.
McConville has called for a series of much-needed reforms.
“The Emergency Services Agency must be recast as an administrative and coordination body, as opposed to an operational service, as recommended following the 2003 fires,” he said.
“To deliver the budgetary transparency Canberrans deserve, we call for an inquiry by the auditor-general into the expenditure of the $45 million allocated by the ACT government for fire services modernisation and enhancement.
“Finally, we call for a restructuring of ACT Fire and Rescue Service as an enhanced fire and emergency services authority with its supporting professional, administrative, clerical, and technical staff.
“With climate change driving more extreme weather events each year, including worsening bushfires, the people of the ACT can no longer tolerate the failures of their Emergency Services Agency.”
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