Mounting challenges for newly sworn in police commissioner of New South Wales

ABC NEWS (Australia)

New South Wales has a new police commissioner Mal Lanyon who was officially sworn into the role on Wednesday. The veteran officer takes charge of a twenty thousand strong work force which receives more than 5 billion taxpayer dollars a year. But on day one of his five-year appointment commissioner Lanyon accepts he now faces a long list of challenges.

Transcript

00:00With bushfires still fresh in Canberran's memories,

00:08preparing for the upcoming season is front of mind.

00:12So the 1st of October is the start of the declared bushfire season for the ACT.

00:16Our outlook for the season is for an average season.

00:20We do live in the bush capital and we are prone to fires.

00:24While a catastrophic season isn't expected, there's still plenty of risk.

00:29We are likely to have an extended grass season this year

00:32with the growth that we're getting through spring.

00:34And if we don't get those follow-up rains, then grass will be our biggest problem.

00:39Bushfires are all too familiar for Uriarra cattle farmer Brian Blundell,

00:44whose family has lived in the Canberra region since 1820.

00:49During Canberra's catastrophic bushfires in 2003,

00:54Mr Blundell's property was on the front line.

00:57Most of our livestock survived but then we had no feed to feed them

01:02and we had sort of very little water.

01:04So it was very difficult for quite some months after the fires

01:09and for many years trying to recover from that.

01:13And he fears that with the right conditions it could happen again.

01:17Since 2003 there's been significant sort of fuel build-up in some areas.

01:25There has been some hazard reduction burning,

01:29but that has not kept up with sort of the regrowth that's occurred since then.

01:37The Territory Government says it's ready.

01:40There's a lot of backburning and work that occurs

01:44and assessing the landscape in terms of high risk areas.

01:49As the weather warms, Canberrans are being urged to prepare.

01:54Please clean up your property, clean your gutters out,

01:57remove any materials that could be combustible around your property.

02:01A timely warning to take on lessons of the past.

02:05There's a lot of backburning and e've looked at the past.

02:11And there is no doubt about the past.

02:14There's a lot of backburning and being used for previous years.

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