WOOROLOO BUSHFIRE
351. Hon MARTIN
ALDRIDGE
to the Leader of the House representing the Minister for Emergency Services:
I refer to the Wooroloo bushfire in
February that destroyed over 80 homes north-east of Perth and significantly
impacted the Shire of Mundaring and the City of Swan.
(1) Given the
significance of this event, will the state government commit to undertake an
independent review into these fires in a similar manner to the inquiry
conducted into the 2016 Waroona bushfire?
(2) Does the
state government have a standard practice of conducting independent reviews
following major natural disaster events, and what factors are considered when
determining whether an independent review is warranted?
(3) Have any requests been made to the state
government for an independent review into the Wooroloo bushfire; and, if
so, please table any such correspondence?
Hon SUE
ELLERY replied:
The Department of Fire and Emergency
Services advises —
(1) DFES has
completed an initial information-gathering phase following the 2021 Wooroloo bushfire.
The state government is currently considering a draft framework for the review
of the Wooroloo bushfire. An announcement on the parameters will be made in due
course.
(2) DFES
undertakes internal reviews of incident response performance as a matter of
routine organisational policy in the context of continual improvement of
emergency management. DFES also complies with the State Emergency Management
Committee policy for the provision of post-operation reports.
(3) Ministerial
correspondence contains personal and sensitive information and the provision of
this in an appropriate format would divert
departmental staff away from their normal duties. I encourage the member
to contact the Minister for Emergency Services for a briefing on this matter.
Hon Martin Aldridge: I did,
on 9 June.
Hon SUE ELLERY: I am happy to
follow that up then.