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Make a Submission to the Bushfire Inquiry

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TO: Legislative Council Environment and Planning Committee
Parliament House
Spring Street
EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002

Dear Committee,

I appreciate the opportunity to provide a submission to this important Inquiry. I appreciate that the Terms of Reference are broad and comprehensive, which will allow for important issues about climate change and land management to be considered, as well as the details around preparation for, and response to, this summer’s fires.

I will not address each of the Terms of Reference separately, but instead would like to make the following relevant key points in order to address them as a whole:

Climate change and fire

Climate change/ global heating is making fire seasons longer and more intense. This is having significant impacts on firefighters, resources like trucks and aircraft, the environment and rural and regional communities. We must stop contributing to the problem. That means ensuring a rapid and complete transition away from our current reliance on fossil fuels to a mix of renewables, storage and energy efficiency as rapidly as possible.

Emergency Services

Our emergency services are incredibly professional organisations, which ensured Victoria was ready for this summer’s fires. They prepared for extreme conditions and managed the fires as effectively as possible when they started.

There needs to be continued investment in secure, year-round jobs for Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) firefighters and skill expansion within these roles. While I oppose the current broad-acre approach to planned burning in forest reserves, I support regional land management activity that can help retain the employment of skilled firefighters. Outside November to March, FFMV permanent staff could help manage visitation (including maintaining roads, walking tracks, campgrounds, picnic areas etc.) as well as conduct ecological monitoring, restoration and management works (this should include the expansion of field staff (these fit within the Australian Workers Union – AWU) Band 3 roles and AWU Band 4 roles). Improved working conditions for seasonal firefighters (Seasonal Forest and Fire Operations Officers), as advocated for by the AWU, will also be essential to increasing the state’s ability to detect and suppress fires early.

There should be a review into whether additional rappel crews need to be established within FFMV and we propose the creation of an interim third Hover Exit crew (5 crew members each) to be established at Horsham to expand capability in Western Victoria.

The government must replace pumpers/ tankers/ appliances at a rate higher than the aging rate. The CFA and Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) fleets are going backwards – and replacement levels are not allowing many older appliances to be replaced within the recommended timeframe.

This summer saw the first ever deployment of a volunteer arduous/remote area firefighting team within the CFA. This is a welcome development. We must continue to expand the arduous/remote area firefighting capacity within CFA to explicitly recruit new members from urban areas that are outside CFA brigade catchment areas.

The government must continue to invest in a more flexible fleet of fire fighting vehicles in the CFA, including ultra light tankers, which can be driven with a regular license, and safely crewed by 2 people.

As fire seasons become longer, there is greater pressure on all firefighters, especially volunteers who need to take time off work to attend fires. The committee should consider possible additional support for people taking extended time away from work and family commitments to attend fires.

As fire seasons get longer in both hemispheres, Australia is at risk of losing access to the Large Air Tankers (LATs) that we lease from North America. At present Australia only owns 1 LAT, which is owned by the NSW Rural Fire Service and we need 6 or 7 each summer. The committee should consider whether Victoria should also purchase its own LAT, which can then be leased to the northern hemisphere in our winter.

Environment

There should be no return to a hectare fuel reduction burning target – this will increase ecological damage across the state, without significant benefits to human safety or protection of human assets. Funding place-specific research, so that our bushfire fire mitigation strategies can work with Victoria’s landscapes and specific vegetation, would be far more effective than any blanket application.

The state invests enormous amounts of money into fuel reduction. For instance, $160 million was allocated in 2023-24 on ‘fire risk reduction strategy’. Rather than funding more fuel reduction, Victoria should allocate funding to:

Carry out an independent assessment of the ecological impacts and economic effects of current fuel reduction programs.
Protect and manage forests to build their fire resilience. Specifically, this means allowing forests to mature to a less flammable phase.
Allocate additional funds to expand its firefighting workforce and rapid detection and suppression of new start fires.

It is essential that the Committee recommend that the government modify fuel reduction burning practices to ensure that, when they are employed (strategically and close to towns and homes – not in broad acre burns of forested reserves), that they do not cause ecological damage (especially loss of older and large habitat trees). These changes should include:

Requiring Planned Burn Controllers to develop strategies to protect ecological assets, such as habitat trees and known areas containing threatened species or fire sensitive communities in their fire management plan for each burn.
The Australian Workers Union (AWU) suggests the addition of a further 2 Field Assessors per fire District (increasing from 16 to 48 state wide) which would facilitate the extra ecological assessment work prior to burns being undertaken.
Require incident controllers managing fires on public land to include strategies to ensure the protection of ecological assets in their fire management plans.

There is a view held by many that the damage of fires is compounded by over zealous ‘clean up’ of hazardous trees after fires. There needs to be clearer guidelines and more effective oversight to ensure that only trees that truly pose a risk to the public or human assets are removed in the clean up process – and that maximum habitat is retained, including along roadsides.

Recovery Efforts and Building Resilience

Secure, adequate, long-term funding for community emergency preparedness and proactive climate adaptation (for example, the VCCAF proposed during the Climate Resilience Inquiry) is an essential element of ensuring preparedness for future disasters.

Wildlife carers are an essential component of emergency response operations as well as recovery – their involvement must be facilitated by the authorities, not hindered, so that animals can be attended to in a timely manner.

Value biodiversity and habitat during recovery.

A statement on the inquiry timeline and submission deadline March 15

While I appreciate the detailed scope of the Inquiry and agree that inquiry into such significant events are important, we query the timeline of this investigation and caution all parties about leveraging such serious events for political gain. While an inquiry like this presents an important opportunity to integrate learnings and influence future preparedness, the impacts of the fires remain very raw for affected communities and many people are still stabilising and remain focused on meeting their immediate needs and rebuilding their lives.

We echo Murrindindi Shire Council’s sentiment and support their request for a deadline extension, given that this region experienced almost half of the total statewide impact from the 2026 summer fires, with 193 homes destroyed. Respect for recovering communities’ lived experience – and their essential contribution to an inquiry of this nature – may mean granting people from affected areas additional time to contribute to this process.

Thank you for your consideration of the above – and for your work during this Inquiry.

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