2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission

Australian commission of enquiry, 2009–2010 See Talk February 2017 April 2022 2009 02 16 y – 2010 07 31 y Inquiry period Commissioners Bernard Teague Susan Pascoe Ronald McLeod Archived at Trove - Snapshot as at 27 September 2010 67 Recommendations in Final Report 7 Recommendations in 2nd Interim Report 51 Recommendations in the 1st Interim Report Final Report Archived at Trove January 2020 August 2011 The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission is a Victorian Royal Commission that concluded on 31 July 2010 that investigated the circumstances surrounding the Black Saturday bushfires on Saturday 7February 2009 which caused 173 fatalities. http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au Commission draws to a close 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission Website 12 February 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20100214171114/http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/ 14 February 2010 dead Preceding events Premier John Brumby announced a Royal Commission into the fires to examine "all aspects of the government's bushfire strategy",http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/09/2486489.htm?section=justin https://web.archive.org/web/20090212071911/http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/09/2486489.htm?section=justin dead 12 February 2009 Brumby announces bushfires Royal Commission 9 February 2009 ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation 9 February 2009http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25029098-5001021,00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090210103658/http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25029098-5001021,00.html dead 10 February 2009 Victorian fires royal commission 9 February 2009 Daily Telegraph 9 February 2009 including whether climate change contributed to the severity of the fires. On 13 February 2009 Brumby announced that Justice Bernard Teague, former judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, would chair the Commission, to be assisted by two other Commissioners. Austin Paul Teague to chair royal commission The Age 13 February 2009 http://www.theage.com.au/national/teague-to-chair-royal-commission-20090213-86y0.html 13 February 2009 Melbourne On 16 February, the assistant Commissioners were appointed: Ron McLeod, former Commonwealth Ombudsman and the head of an inquiry concerning the 2003 Canberra bushfires; and Susan Pascoe, the Commissioner of the State Services Authority. Wide-ranging powers for bushfire inquiry: Brumby Australian Broadcasting Corporation 16 February 2009 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/16/2492692.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20090217203212/http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/16/2492692.htm dead 17 February 2009 17 February 2009 The Commission was given very broad terms of reference, with Premier Brumby saying that the Commission would be "[t]he most open inquiry that is possible. No stone unturned. Every bit of information on the table. And if that means calling ministers or premiers, or whoever it is, we will be happy to assist." The commission alt=A map of the fire events and fatalities on 7 February 2009 that were the main focus of the Royal Commission|thumb|300x300px|A map of the fire events and fatalities on 7 February 2009 that were the main focus of the Royal Commission In the preliminary hearing on 20 April, commission counsel Jack Rush delivered in his opening address that an interim report assessing the inadequately short notice warnings would be delivered by the commission to the government by August. The report would evaluate the current "stay or go policy" for bushfire evacuation, and during the commission various bureaucrats' performance and judgment was scrutinised, including Commissioner of Emergency Services Bruce Esplin, and CFA Operations Officer Jason Lawrence but most significantly CFA Chief Officer Russel Rees. Rees's knowledge and the rapidity of his actions (mainly lack of) were questioned, and his defense included: that 7 February was the first day the Integrated Emergency Coordination Centre (IECC) had been tested and it worked well; that intelligence was unclear during the day; that the IECC were very busy; the fires were being fought from the inside and not the outside; and that he couldn't focus on one fire because it would narrow his statewide perspective. The commission's questioning explicitly revealed that Rees had not kept close contact with the progress of the Kilmore East fire. At 4pm, ten minutes before the Strathewen fires had consumed the area, Rees had accepted a state situation report claiming the fire remained in Mount Disappointment's forest and wouldn't reach Whittlesea for five hours, 30 minutes later the Kilmore East fire reached Kinglake West and swarmed Kinglake less than three hours later. News of deaths reached the Kangaroo Ground CFA office at 5pm and Rees said he'd first been informed of these deaths between 7 and 8pm. Rees was also unaware: of the aircraft line-scan taken after the fire erupted, chief fire behaviour expert Dr Kevin Tolhurst's presence and predictive map he and his team produced. Rees's evidence explained that warnings weren't issued from the centre but from the periphery, the local incident-control centers (ICCs), the IECC's only responsibility was to place such warnings on the CFA website, but nor Rees or any IECC members saw the warnings. The working bushfire 'stay or go' (evacuate or protect your home) policy was scrutinised and severely questioned. The policy was founded on the empirical claim, researched by Dr Katherine Haynes, that concluded that survival was more likely for people to be actively fighting the fire at home than passively shelter or evacuate to be stuck on the roads. The policy was defended by Esplin, who argued against the proposal of compulsory mass evacuation insisting that people intending to leave their homes should have been gone long before specific fires were imminent. He clarified that threat messages weren't a signal to evacuate but exclusive prompts to assist people who planned to defend their property. Robert Manne adds "In the philosophy of Bruce Esplin ... the kind of mid-afternoon warnings the citizens north of Melbourne so desperately needed on 7 February simply had no place". In its final week, the commission looked at the fuel-reduction burns in Bendigo and Gippsland. As it turned out, none of the 51 recommendations the commission handed down dealt with fuel reduction, but there was significant public concern that something more should have been done. Devine Miranda Fire prevention on backburner The Sydney Morning Herald 20 August 2009 17 http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/fire-prevention-on-backburner-20090819-eqht.html 6 September 2009 Criticism of the stay or go policy Manne drew his own conclusions based on the evidence heard at the Royal Commission: "From the evidence collected at the royal commission, the cumbersome new bureaucratic machine, the IECC, seems to have operated like an army without a general, where no one thought it their responsibility to take the lead. "Because of the false empirical assumptions of the stay-or-go policy, many of those at the IECC seem to have convinced themselves that if last-minute warnings triggered flight, this would pose a deadlier threat than staying put. "Far too few inside the firefighting bureaucracies were willing on 7 February to break the rules, to disobey authority or to act spontaneously at time of crisis". Manne Robert Robert Manne Why we weren't warned: the Victorian bushfires and the Royal Commission The Monthly July 2009 47 22–35 http://www.themonthly.com.au/node/1780 6 September 2009 The interim report was released to the public on 17 August.http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25944027-5006785,00.html The Australian Gary Hughes Black Saturday report savages fire authorities 18 August 2009 6 September 2009 https://web.archive.org/web/20090821194123/http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25944027-5006785,00.html 21 August 2009 dead dmy-all Criticism of the fuel-reduction burns In a guest editorial for Australian Forestry, Michael Ryan, one of the victims who lost houses in Bendigo and who works in forestry, said that Victorian authorities need to "manage fuels appropriately in diverse forest types, and residents at the rural-urban interface need to be properly prepared—and on 7 February the reality is that many were not." Ryan Michael Victorian fires: retrospective and prospective Australian Forestry 72 2 June 2009 59–60 References External links Australia Archived Website of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission as at 27 September 2010 (Trove via National Library of Australia) Letters Patent for the Royal Commission (Trove via National Library of Australiamedic) Interim Report 1 (Trove via National Library of Australia) Interim Report 2 (Trove via National Library of Australiamedic) (PDF) Final Report Summary medic(PDF) Volume 1: The Fires and the Fire-Related Deathsmedic Volume 2: Fire Preparation, Response and Recoverymedic Volume 3: Establishment and Operation of the Commissionmedic Volume 4: The Statements of Lay Witnesses 2009 Category:Victoria (state) royal commissions Category:2009 in Victoria (state)