“Australia is much better prepared for this coming season than we were heading into Black Summer. We have implemented almost all of the recommendations of the bushfire royal commission that were made to the federal government,” Watt said on the ABC’sInsiders program on Sunday.
“They include establishing one coordinated national emergency management agency,rather than two separate organisations under two separate ministers which existed before.”
He said the federal government had doubled its spending on aerial firefighting since Black Summer and had an additional large water-bombing aircraft,as well as more helicopters. Between the Commonwealth,states and territories,he said there were about 500 aircraft available for this fire season,which is more than at any other point.
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Ahead of a two-day bushfire summit in Canberra – which will begin on Monday and bring together representatives from the public sector,firefighting services,community organisations and the private sector – Watt said state authorities had assured him their firefighting capacity was sufficient to deal with the summer ahead.
They had also been doing their best regarding hazard reduction burns,but had been limited by wet weather brought by almost three years of La Niña weather patterns,he said. The Bureau of Meteorology declared an El Nino weather pattern – which brings hot and dry summers –last week.
“My understanding is that Queensland has reached its targets for fuel reduction heading into this summer,but states like New South Wales and Victoria,where we have had incredibly heavy flooding over the last year or so,it has been more difficult,” Watt said.