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Environmental Defenders Office recognises the need for our planning and environmental laws to address the root causes of the increasing risk posed by bushfires and ensure we can better adapt and manage them.
In that context, EDO welcomes the opportunity to make a submission on the draft Bushfire Mitigation Measures Bill (Bill). As a community legal centre specialising in public interest environmental and planning law, EDO’s submission addresses the Bill through an environmental law lens.
In this submission we first focus on the key environmental drivers of bushfires, principally climate change, and how these should be addressed in ecologically sustainable, science-based laws, regulations and strategies to protect life and property and the environment from the impacts of bushfires. Then we address the specific contents of the Bill, with a view to making recommendations about how it might be improved.
