The Rural Fire Brigades Association of Queensland’s general manager has described the state government’s review into the 2018 bushfires as '’not cutting it with us'’.
Justin Choveaux’s comments follow criticism of the government’s approach to learning from the fires from AgForce president, Georgie Somerset, who said the review would not cover the factors that impacted most heavily on their severity, as they saw it – lack of resourcing to adequately manage fuel loads in national parks and on state land, and vegetation management laws that prevented land owners from being able to control fires on their properties.
Mr Choveaux described the review being conducted by the Inspector-General Emergency Management as not a real bushfire review because its terms of reference made it clear it was only incorporating responses for the fires on the east coast, where there had been a disaster declaration.
“There have been a lot of fires across Queensland since August – Woolooga, Toogoolawah, the border country, the Arcadia Valley – this is not going to cut it with us,” he said.
Instead, he said his organisation, which covers the 93 per cent of Queensland where rural brigades operate, would “answer the questions they should have asked”.
“We’re not going to focus on the response; the rural brigades did a brilliant job, they kept coming back for more,” he said. “Instead, we intend to focus on land management, particularly Crown land.”
Mr Choveaux said the state government was a landholder like everyone else, with no special rights, which meant they had an obligation to their neighbours to do hazard reduction burns and maintain their land, including road and rail corridors as well as national parks and reserves.
Its policy of adding to the eight million hectares of national park land, without growing the staffing necessary to maintain that land came in for criticism. He said more people with relevant land management knowledge should be put on the books.
Responding to Department of Environment statistics showing that in 2017-18 the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service conducted planned burns over an area of nearly 943,000 hectares, well above the original target of about 632,000 hectares and the highest amount in five years, Mr Choveaux said it was where you burned and what needed burning that was important.
“The minister can’t just say, I did more of this so it’s more gooder,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
Public service practices, such as clocking off the fire line at 4pm, will also be addressed in the RFBAQ submission.
