This article relates to the ongoing debate on ARR.News: Open for Debate – Bushfires, Logging, Burns & Forest Management
Frank Batini, (Hon. Sec., The Bushfire Front (BFF)) wrote to the Hon. Reece Whitby MLA (Minister for Environment (WA) and the Hon. Stephen Dawson MLC (Minister for Emergency Services (WA) as follows:
The Committee of the Bushfire Front met [on 11 September 2023] to discuss the EPA report and recommendations.
I attach for information a comment from a colleague who lives in Gippsland and has experienced first-hand Victoria’s multiple failures in managing fire.1
Yet, this is the very system that proponents for change (WAFA, Curtin academics, Leewen group) wish to impose on Western Australians who live in our the south-west.
It is very easy to demand radical change when you know that you will not be held accountable. However, Ministers and Departments will be held to account.
Claims that prescribed burning will not assist with wildfire control are spurious. There are many, many examples from WA, I attach two.2
The EPA report on their review of the FMP failed to mention that a West Australian Parliamentary Committee, after hearing multiple evidence, recently concluded that an additional review of prescribed burning practices by Government was NOT warranted. This is a blatant and serious omission.
Rather than the negative quote from a Victorian enquiry (page 35 [38]), it would have been much more appropriate for EPA to refer to the Ferguson Report on the Waroona wildfire.
The Bushfire Front intends to submit a formal appeal on several aspects of the EPA Report 1745.
References
1. Cameron J (2023), Without doubt bushfire mitigation in WA is better than Victoria.
2. Burrows N, Sneeuwjagt, R (2020), Landscape prescribed burning: a south west Australian perspective; Batini F, Jarrahdale dodged wildfire destruction in 2007.
Related story: EPA calls for burning enquiry
