THE ACT Opposition has demanded the Government release all details of its bushfire response plan and says it’s breaking a law by hiding the information.

Last Friday, the ACT Auditor General issued a report with 24 recommendations to improve on the ACT’s bushfire preparedness, one of which was that the Emergency Services Agency should begin complying fully with the Emergencies Act 2004, by including an “explicit statement of all resources needed” for its Strategic Bushfire Management Plan to work as intended.

This morning Shadow Emergency Services Minister Brendan Smyth called on the Government to release the information and accused its members of “complacency with regards to emergency preparedness”.

“The Canberra Liberals have called on the Government to release such details on previous occasions but the Government have consistently denied all requests,” Mr Smyth says. “Our latest request was last month, but the Government declined, noting that such information was not ‘considered appropriate for public release’.”

Mr Smyth said the data was being unlawfully held back by his opposite number, Emergency Services Minister Simon Corbell, whose actions to block such transparency he described as “cold comfort for Canberrans who lived through the horrors of the 2003 bushfires”.

“Recommendation 2 of the report noted that the Government’s unwillingness to provide an explicit statement of all necessary resources to meet the objectives of the ACT Strategic Bushfire Management Plan was a breach of the Emergencies Act 2004,” Mr Smyth says.

“Canberrans have the right to know whether the Government has allocated enough resources to manage and prevent natural emergencies.”

“… The Auditor General has quite plainly noted that withholding such information from the community amounts to legal noncompliance.

“If the Government has nothing to hide, it is time that they release the relevant data and assure Canberrans that there is adequate capability to meet our city’s emergency services requirements.”