Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House the people’s concerns with the performance of the Queensland Government (QG) in regard to managing the recent fire disaster. The QG did less than 10% of the preparation work required and actively stopped Queenslanders living in rural and regional communities from doing appropriate preparation for the fire season. We have lost count of the number of fire permits that were refused along with the refused applications to doze in fire-breaks. The QG in turn, did virtually nothing on crown land to prepare for the fire season. This is why the majority of issues with fire management were on crown land. Tragically, some of these fires resulted in the deaths of volunteers.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to call on the State Government to accept and publicly acknowledge its failure to manage this last fire season and call on the State Government to have disaster management placed under the control of independent specialists who are committed to preventing and managing disasters.