The Inspector-General Emergency Management recommends the Queensland State Disaster Management Plan and the Queensland Bushfire Plan be reviewed to enhance appropriate arrangements for the management of bushfire and disaster events where a threat is posed to significant environmental and cultural heritage sites.

The Inspector-General Emergency Management recommends that the Queensland Government works with the Commonwealth Government to review the Project Agreement for World Heritage Management to ensure Queensland and Australia continue to meet their obligations under the World Heritage Convention to protect, conserve and present our World Heritage properties.

The Inspector-General Emergency Management recommends a set of guiding principles that reflect a unified response to World Heritage listed sites in Queensland be included in the Queensland State Disaster Management Plan and reflected in the Queensland Bushfire Plan.

The Inspector-General Emergency Management recommends entities with responsibilities for land and fire management consider the establishment of roles for Traditional Owner and First Nations representatives in incident management structures for significant bushfire or disaster events including those that may impact on cultural heritage in Queensland’s World Heritage sites.

Australian, state, territory and local governments should explore further opportunities to leverage Indigenous land and fire management insights, in the development, planning and execution of public land management activities. 

Australian, state, territory and local governments should engage further with Traditional Owners to explore the relationship between Indigenous land and fire management and natural disaster resilience. 

WHoG desktop exercise should be conducted to test and support relocation and evacuation planning.

That, in order to ensure Aboriginal people can access appropriate support during evacuation, Resilience NSW work with Local Emergency Management Committees and Aboriginal Affairs to ensure:
a) local Aboriginal communities are included in emergency planning and preparation
b) all staff involved in evacuation centres and support services are culturally competent.

That, in order to increase the respectful, collaborative and effective use of Aboriginal land management practices in planning and preparing for bush fire, Government commit to pursuing greater application of Aboriginal land management, including cultural burning, through a program to be coordinated by Aboriginal Affairs and Department of Planning, Industry and Environment working in partnership with Aboriginal communities. This should be accompanied by a program of evaluation alongside the scaled-up application of these techniques.

That Government adopt the principle that cultural burning is one component of a broader practice of traditional Aboriginal land management and is an important cultural practice, not simply another technique of hazard reduction burning.

A measure of safety may be found in the use of high explosives combined with wet tamping, or, still better, water cartridges, instead of powder under any of its modifications. Encouragement ought also to be given to the use of patent multiple wedges and applicances of a like nature, for supplanting the use of explosives. Under all circumstances and conditions some provision should be adopted for compelling workmen to thoroughly undercut, shear, or nick, and generally to work the coal as directed by the Manager. 

Where safety-lamps are used the lock should be of such a character as to prevent any workman opening it. If the "Protector" type of lamp be employed the necessity for a lock is the less necessary, as the unscrewing of this type of lamp extinguishes the light. 

Infringement of the regulations by either party should be followed by a summary form of justice, instituted before two Magistrates.

Where safety-lamps are necessary - gas being present for (say) one month after being found in dangerous quantity - they should be securely locked by a man duly appointed, and tampering with them must be punishable by a simple and inexpensive process of law. 

The Government introduce an amendment to the Country Fire Authority Act 1958 or other instruments which imposes significant penalties and strengthens enforcement, including via infringement notices, for offences against Total Fire Ban requirements before the 2017‑2018 fire season.

The Government should:
(a) provide additional support to the Gippsland Arson Prevention Program; and
(b) support the establishment of arson prevention programs of this type in other bushfire‑prone regions within Victoria, and involve both community and government agencies.

I recommend that the Law, Crime and Community Safety Council develop a mechanism to ensure that all information on criminal history (including bail) that is relevant to the investigation and prosecution of criminal offences is readily accessible to police and prosecutors across all Australian jurisdictions.

Personal protective equipment (masks, gowns, gloves, goggles) – review supply/distribution arrangements.

Personal protective equipment (masks, gowns, gloves, goggles) – enhance stocktake methods.

Review temporary bridge stockpile for adequacy (DSG).

That the legislation and enforcement arrangements are reviewed to ensure there are suitable offences and penalties, investigation and enforcement capabilities, and a rigorous approach is taken to breaches of the law.

Housing should ensure it has sound systems, processes and controls in place that minimise the opportunity for fraud and gives it the best chance of detecting it by:
- conducting structured fraud risk analysis to identify areas of its maintenance processes or systems where the risk of fraud is highest
- putting in place a fraud policy to assist staff to detect fraud and respond appropriately to instances of suspected fraud
- making greater use of its maintenance information to identify patterns of activity that may indicate fraud.

Councils and distributor-retailers should agree to protocols for the exchange of information about suspected illegal connections, the steps being taken to investigate them or the basis for concluding that no investigation is required, and the results of any investigations or enforcement actions.

Update the Asset and Equipment Register for all assets and equipment.

Conduct a stocktake of all assets and equipment in all regions for Bushfires NT and Volunteer Brigades.

Conduct a stocktake of all PPE and implement a top up program to bring all PPE to a fully operational standard.

An equipment replacement schedule for all Bushfires NT equipment be developed.

The Assets and Equipment Register be reviewed prior to each fire season.

Implement maintenance schedules for all common assets and shared equipment.

Increase the emphasis on the issuing of infringement notices to reinforce the responsibilities of landholder’s in the management of bushfires in the Territory.

DEWHA should participate in training programs and exercises relevant to an oil spill in the marine environment.

That the Department of the Attorney General, in consultation with FESA and Western Australia Police (WAPOL), consider options for legislative amendments to extend criminal liability to all damage, injury or death directly caused by arson.

That legislation be prepared by the Criminal Law Review Division of the Attorney General’s Department allowing designated officers of the Rural Fire Service to apply for a warrant in certain circumstances.

That the Attorney General’s Department’s Crime Prevention Division consider the causes of, and any solution to, the high number of juveniles involved in causing bushfires.

The prescribed penalty notice penalty amount for section 66(7) of the Rural Fires Act 1997 be increased to $1,100.

The prescribed penalty notice penalty amount for section 99(6) of the Rural Fires Act 1997 be increased to $1,100.

The prescribed penalty notice penalty amount for section 100(2) of the Rural Fires Act 1997 be increased to $1,100.

A working group be established to consider methods of preventing criminal firestarting.

That the Minister for Emergency Services and the Minister for Local Government cause local council plant and equipment that is suitable for use in bushfire fighting be fitted with radios connected to the Government Radio Network.

Expiation fees be reviewed so as to be consistent with the seriousness of the offences.

NOPSA should use encouragement as the primary tool of enforcing compliance provided willingness to improve is exhibited by the players.

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government, in consultation with Indigenous Australians and other coastal stakeholders, commission work to provide a national repository identifying Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural heritage sites in vulnerable coastal areas.

That the Emergency Services Agency give priority to ensuring it has guaranteed access to an adequate number and type of bulldozers, as well as experienced operators, during the fire season, for immediate deployment as required

The risk of abuse of internal passenger emergency door releases should be further reduced by introducing significant penalties for any improper use of such an emergency facility. It should be a criminal offence for anyone to use or tamper improperly with an emergency escape facility in a train.

Local authorities prosecute in all cases of deliberate breaches of the provisions of the Bush Fires Act and thay failing this the Bush Fires Board take appropriate action to initiate such prosecutions.

To recommend to shire councils the purchase of fire carts and necessary equipment for fire fighting.

To prohibit persons throwing lighted cigarettes, cigars and tobacco among any straw, stubble, grass or herbage during the months of September to March in any Bush Fire area, under a penalty not exceeding $10.

To prohibit persons taking into a harvest field or through any grass or bush lands any motor, tractor, harvester, &c., which is not supplied with an approved fire extinguisher or without the exhaust being properly fitted and protected, under a penalty not exceeding $50.

To arrange for uniform water facilities, where possible, by having large taps attached to elevated tanks, suitable approaches made to dams for filling carts, and convienient gates to approach same.

The Commission recommends that buckets of sand or other apparatus for extinguishing fire be kept in any chamber where high powered electricity is used.

That a by-law be made forbidding, under a heavy penalty, any persons travelling in such trains to throw lighted tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, pipe ashes, matches, or other inflammable matter on the railway line or right-of-way, or in any part of a railway carriage except the receptacles duly provided for the purpose.

That suitable metal receptacles be fitted under the spittoons of all smoking compartments of country trains, to receive pipe ashes, lighted tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, matches, or other inflammable matter used by smokers.