[Margaret Pilkington]

A relative of ours has a homestead in Oz.
This guy has lots of trees on his property which is very big.
He applied to cut down some trees to create a firebreak so that his propert which is over 200 years old...was built by early settlers could be made safer.
His application was turned down....and he was told that if he did cut down the trees he would be hit with fines that could exceed a hundred thousand dollars.
Needless to say that he did not make his firebreak.

Now every bush fire season he damps down his property with the water from his pool.
Recently, his well ran dry, so he can no longer do this because the pool is no longer full of water....so I would guess that he is a very worried man right now.
Especially as the current fires are about 25 miles away.

That sounds a long way, but in the right conditions the fire could be on their property in a very short time.

It is tragic that bureaucracy can dictate unsafe practices...and enforce them with fines.