Tuesday, 9 October 2007

NATIONALS:  FIRE WATER - GOVERNMENT TAKE/GOVERNMENT REPLACE

The Nationals will move an amendment in Parliament this week to require the Government to replace water taken to fight fires.

Bill Sykes, Nationals Spokesperson for Emergency Services, will move his amendment when the Emergency Services Amendment Bill is debated in State Parliament this week.

Dr Sykes said, “The Government has tried to shift the cost of replenishing the water used to fight fires onto private landholders and their insurance policies.

“The political commitment to continue to replace critical water supplies was only given last week after I raised it as an issue with the Minister for Emergency Services’ staff.

“It is not acceptable for this important issue to be at the whim of the Minister of the day – it must be locked into legislation.

“After all we can all remember some recent broken political commitments by the State Labor Government, most notably that “no water will be piped to Melbourne from Lake Eildon” – made in November 2006 only to be broken within six months!”

Dr Sykes continued, “I have spoken with the Insurance Council of Australia on this issue and they acknowledge the need to re-visit the current legislation which deems water used to fight fires to be a cost claimable on a person’s fire insurance policy.

“Times have changed; no longer is water just taken from the premise on which the fire is occurring. Now helicopters take massive amounts of water to fight fires many kilometres away.

“Why should a person who is many kilometres away from a fire have to make a claim on his/her fire insurance policy and probably have to pay a significant excess and incur an increase in fire insurance premiums?

In addition to this amendment, Dr Sykes will argue that the State Government must accept responsibility for providing strategically located water supplies on public land rather than relying on water from neighbouring landholders.

He said, “The Government is responsible for managing seven million hectares of land; it is their responsibility to have in place sound fire risk management strategies which would logically include strategically located water sources as well as fuel reduction burning and permanent containment lines.

Media contact: Bill Sykes (03) 5762 2100 or 0427 624 989