Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Thursday 20 November 2008

CONTROLLED BURN-OFFS

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I was going to speak on burn-offs again, and I went into this a bit yesterday. I think we all know of the concerns about burn-offs around the State and the issues surrounding this practice. In fact, last year I was motivated to bring on a motion in relation to burning off in this State. The motion read:

'That the Legislative Council calls on the State Government to provide appropriate assurances to the people of Tasmania that -

(1) adequate controls are in place to protect property and the health of Tasmanians in the vicinity of controlled burn-offs; and

(2) every endeavour is made to ensure that burn-offs only occur when optimum weather conditions permit.'

As a result of that, I was given a briefing by Forestry Tasmania in relation to burning off in this State. It was a good briefing which went into a lot of detail and a lot of issues. As a result I was of the belief that perhaps there would be some restriction on burning off in this State and that I did not have a need at that stage to pursue that motion, and accordingly I withdrew the motion. However, since that time there is a clear perception that burning off in this State is continuing more frequently and that people are being impacted on by smoke more often. That is the reason I am bringing it back today to talk on it here.

Last year during winter I received many complaints of burning off in and around the Launceston area. We referred yesterday to families that have been impacted on by this activity. This year I have received a multiplicity of complaints in relation to the same issue. This occurred mainly during April and May, but at some other times as well, and to such an extent that some families are moving out of their homes during those periods because of the impact it is having.

The member for Launceston mentioned yesterday the family that had recently moved into the area of Nunamara and Patersonia because of a daughter who had suffered problems from wood smoke living in Launceston because of her asthma, et cetera. She was improving since she had moved into that area. However, she is now experiencing some of the problems that she had previously had. I received a raft of complaints right through that period. However, we referred to this yesterday and I am not going to go back through it.

I want to refer now to tourism and the impact of smoke on tourism in this State. I specifically want to refer to Targa this year, Madam President. Tourism Tasmania promotes our State to the world as having beautiful clear blue skies and I think many of the participants in Targa come here expecting to see just that - nice clear blue skies, nice fresh air. This year, however, that was not what these visitors got. Many Tasmanians were particularly concerned about the image being presented to the world during this year's Targa event. This year our beautiful clear blue skies were in fact dirty brown smoke-heavy skies. Some would have us believe that the majority of the smoke blanketing the State during Targa was from forestry burns in Victoria and local private burn-offs. They probably did contribute to the problem, but there were many other fires burning in this State at about that same time.

Targa is a major tourism event for this State, bringing visitors from interstate and overseas in large numbers and it generates huge revenue benefits to this State. The thing that worries me most about this problem is that the date for the Targa event is known years in advance. Surely, given the considerable advance notice of the event, we should make sure that we do everything in our power, and the Government should do everything in its power, to showcase our State in the best possible way. Why do we need to tarnish the image we work so hard to present -

Ms Thorp - Are you suggesting moving Targa to outside the forestry burn times?

Mr DEAN - I have to keep going because I am losing my time - particularly when we get our chance to be on the world stage in the way that we are during Targa. The date for next year's Targa event is 28 April to 3 May 2009 and I hope that we do get control of this issue during that period of time.

Mr Parkinson - Tourists do understand the need for burn-offs.

Mr DEAN - Absolutely, I was going to say that. In conclusion, I want to say that there is a need for burn-offs. We need to reduce the fuel out there. We have only to remind ourselves, as I said yesterday, of the fires on the east coast only two years ago, and the 1966 fires. We have to have fuel reduction burns. There is no doubt about that, but I think that we need to make sure that we pick the right times to do it -

Ms Thorp - They do. They do it based on science, not based on some car race, for goodness' sake.

Mr DEAN - We need to pick the weather right and we also need to have consideration for some of the other bigger issues. Apart from health and family issues and family problems that it creates, we also need to think of tourism because we rely heavily on tourism in this State.

Ms Thorp - It's based on science.

Mr DEAN - That concludes my speech and I am happy that the members have taken it into account.

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