No chance!A B-Double crosses the wrong side of the Hume Highway and slams head-on into a car killing all three occupants
.
Last Friday, a brick-laden truck crossed a grass embankment, crashed through a guard rail and ended up on the opposite side of the Menangle Bridge on the Hume Highway south of Sydney. It slammed head-on into a car killing the three people inside.
It is only a matter of time before such a tragedy befalls the Great Western Highway in the Blue Mountains as more and more B-Doubles ply this regional route.
Driving along many highways throughout Australia has become deadly as more and bigger trucks travel faster just a metre away on the other side of a white line or two. Not only are there more semi-trailers, but trucking companies are increasingly putting larger capacity B-double trucks on the road, which can weigh over 70 tonnes.
When 70 tonnes hits you it is an instant wall of death.
A speeding semi ploughs into the front yard of a home in Rosanna, in eastern Melbourne on 21st September 2010
.
Yet both Liberal and Labor governments at both national and state level are pouring billions of taxpayer dollars to facilitate more road freight on Australian highways, while ignoring the comparative line haul efficiencies and inherent safety of rail freight.
In 1998, the New South Wales Labor Government announced a 12-year $360 million ‘upgrade’ of the Great Western and Mitchell Highways between Penrith (outer Sydney) and Orange in the central west of NSW. In addition, the Federal Liberal-National Coalition Government committed an extra $100 million as part of its Auslink National Network.
The ‘upgrade’ meant transforming the two lane regional highway over the Blue Mountains into a four lane 80kph expressway to facilitate greater and faster trucking – a ‘trucking expressway‘. The then promoted features of this new trucking expressway were to be:
Widening of the highway to a four lane, divided road between Penrith and Katoomba
Widening the highway to mostly three lanes between Katoomba and Mount Victoria (including Blackheath)
Providing additional overtaking lanes along stretches of the highway
Improving pedestrian and traffic facilities at intersections crossing the highway in townships
providing bicycle facilities along the highway
Extensive landscaping and urban design initiatives within Blue Mountains towns and villages.’
.
[Source: NSW Roads and Traffic Authority Great Western Highway Upgrade’ brochure, January 2002]
.
Well, the widening is certainly carving through Blue Mountains communities and bushland. Pedestrian walkways and crossings are few and far between and the few cycle lanes are within a metre of B-doubles hurtling along at 80kph – those that stick to the speed limit. Who’d be a cyclist on the Great Western Highway now unless one had a death wish?
Destruction in progress yesterday at Boddington Hill, east of Wentworth FallsGreat Western Highway Blue Mountains
(Photo by Editor 20120201, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
In September 2008, the then Federal Labor MP Bob Debus for the Macquarie electorate (covering the Blue Mountains region) committed another $450 million on the Great Western Highway to bypass the village of Mount Victoria and River Lett Hill near Lithgow.
Debus revealed the purpose of the widening on his website:
.
“The bypass will halve times between Mt Victoria and Lithgow, reduce accidents by two-thirds, and improve freight transport from the Central West .
The bypass will provide a route on the western escarpment more suited to the operation of heavy vehicles than the current Victoria Pass…”
.
[Source: ‘Bob Debus for Macquarie E-news #2‘, Bob Debus MP website, ^http://www.bobdebus.com/newsletter2.html (page since defunct since Debus has resigned from Federal Parliament]
.
The joint Labor-Liberal policy focus on developing road freight and ignoring rail freight is short-sighted 20th Century truck thinking. But it is also meaning our regional highways are morphing into bigger and faster freight routes – trucking expressways. Local communities are having to share regional roads with huge trucks.
The trucking industry has allowed itself to become largely contract based where drivers instead of being paid for their time driving are paid on a trip rate. This means that the more trips a driver makes and the faster the delivery times, the more money the drivers earn. This work arrangement only encourages truck drivers to drive faster, often too fast, with disastrous consequences.
.
‘It is a statistic that will alarm police and governments dealing with a string of fatal road accidents: almost two thirds of long haul truck drivers interviewed for a national study say their employers pressure them into using unsafe work practices.’
[Source: ‘Truckies pushed into danger zone’, by Andrew West, Sydney Morning Herald, 20100109, p.2]
.
Recent fatalities on NSW roads , including the death of an 11-year-old boy, have sparked a renewed call for action on trucks in the Mountains.
Deputy Mayor Mark Greenhill moved a matter of urgency at Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) meeting 31st January 2012, calling on state and federal government representatives to meet with BMCC to discuss “means and methods by which large trucks can be limited or controlled in terms of behaviour on the Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains” following several shocking incidents in other areas of the state.
Clr Greenhill: “While the courts have not yet had a chance to determine guilt or otherwise, and I don’t seek to either, recent accidents on NSW roads stand testimony to the awesome power of these trucks,” he said. “In the Campbelltown area a large truck went over the top of a car and killed three people. They had no chance. In coastal NSW a boy was killed while sleeping in his house when a large truck ploughed through it.”
Eleven-year-old boy killed when a B-double crashes through his bedroomAnyone living within 100 metres of a highway has got cause for concern
.
Penrith residents are mourning the death of Max MacGregor, the 11-year-old killed when a truck loaded with bananas crashed through his bedroom on the state’s mid-north coast. Max was asleep in the holiday home his family were renting in Urunga when, at 5am on Sunday, a B-double semi collided head-on with a ute before swerving into the holiday home (100 metres from the highway).
Clr Greenhill: “When things go wrong and [trucks] are out of control, they are an uncompromising and deadly weapon. “In that context, people have been killed in significant numbers in the Blue Mountains. It is a scandal to me that governments are not doing more to control tucks on the highway across the Mountains. “This should especially be the case while the highway works are under way.”
Clr Greenhill released BMCC figures in September last year that showed trucks were over-represented in local crash statistics and motorists were three times more likely to die in a collision with one. The statistics showed that from 2005 to 2009, trucks represented nearly a third of all vehicles involving deaths despite being less than a third of vehicles on local roads. Three per cent of all truck crashes were fatal, compared to one per cent of crashes by all other vehicles, the figures showed.
Clr Greenhill said he had reports from local residents about large trucks “even braving the Old Bathurst Road bends”, and said he would like to see vehicles such as B-doubles off local roads for the time being.’
[Source: Letter to the Editor, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20120201, p4]
.
The tragic accident involving a 25/26m B-double truck at Menangle last week reaffirms the fact that the Great Western Highway, even after the upgrade to Katoomba is completed, will never be suitable for these massive trucks.
Yet the federal government is funding stage one of a multi-billion dollar highway bypass between Mt Victoria and Lithgow, the main purpose being to allow 25/26/30m B-double trucks carrying up to 77 tonnes to use the highway through the Blue Mountains. Despite overwhelming community disapproval the federal government is pushing ahead with stage one, a purpose built 25/26/30m B-double bypass at River Lett Hill.
The Blackheath Highway Action Group along with many other Blue Mountains Groups successfully lobbied for an independent review to be conducted on the proposed Mount Victoria to Lithgow highway bypass and the future of the highway west of Katoomba. In July 2011 the NSW government appointed Evans and Peck, a firm with local knowledge to conduct this review. the review was completed in November so why is the federal government stalling on its public release?
The federal government refuses to fund a $5 million rail study, a key recommendation of the Central West Transport Needs Study. Rail deserves the same funding, tax incentives and regulatory framework as is currently given to support long haul trucking.
For the sake of safety, local amenity and the long term sustainability it’s time to give rail a fair go and permanently abandon plans to spend billions to turn our highway inot a 25/26/30m B-double freight corridor.’
~ Michael Paag, Chairman, Blackheath Highway Action Group, Blue Mountains
‘A driver has died after a truck caught fire and exploded following a head-on collision between the tabletop truck and B-double took place about 24 kilometres south of Dubbo at Mountain Creek Road about 4am, emergency services said. The Newell Highway in Dubbo is closed in both directions between Mitchell Highway and Tomingley Road. The tabletop truck was carrying food and plastic food containers, and the B-double was carrying fertiliser, Ms O’Connor said.’
.
‘Orange truck rollover’
Truck Roll Over at the intersection of Burrendong Way & The Northern Distributor Orange, Central NSW, 20100629
[Source: ‘Orange truck rollover’ by Steve Smith, Rural Fire Service, Canobolas, ^http://www.canobolas.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=131107]
‘One woman was killed and five people were injured in two accidents involving B-double trucks. Engineers were called to the scene of a dramatic accident on the Gateway Motorway at Boondall in Brisbane about midday yesterday, when a B-double truck exploded after it and a car collided. The intensity of the explosion and subsequent fire was so severe that parts of the truck fused together, raising concerns about damage to the road and overpass bridge underneath, a police spokeswoman said.
(Meanwhile) on the Bruce Highway near Rockhampton, a 19-year-old woman died and four people were injured when a car and a B-double truck collided. Police said the station wagon tried to turn into the southbound lanes of the Bruce Highway at Marmor just before 8pm on Friday when the car and truck, which was travelling in the northbound lane, collided.
The 19-year-old driver was killed, while her three female passengers, two aged 19 and one aged 18, were taken to Rockhampton hospital. The three are in a stable condition.The 65-year-old driver of the B-double was taken to hospital for precautionary treatment and has been released.
.
‘Three trucks involved in two separate highway collisions’
A 50-year old man was taken to Dubbo Base Hospital with serious injuries after a collision between a B-double truck and a utility vehicle, occurred about 1.15pm on the Newell Highway just south of Gilgandra.
Earlier in the day, in a separate accident, two trucks collided 25 km outside of Dubbo on the Golden Highway. A UD truck crashed into the back of a Mitsubishi Canter turning right at the Barbigal Road turn off to Wongarbon about 11.40am yesterday.
At the scene, Ballimore RFS deputy captain Col Buckler said the Golden Highway was not currently built for trucks and “most definitively” needed upgrading.
“This is the official B-double road to Newcastle (and) the roads need to be built to carry trucks,” Mr Buckler said. “It’s time they spent money to make it safer because of the amount of trucks that use it.”
.
‘Fatal crash between car and truck causes explosion, closes Pacific Highway’
AT least one person has been killed in the fiery collision between a car and a B-double truck at Warrell Creek, about 10km south of Macksville, just before 4am today.
“The B-doubles can’t pass using the diversion as the rail overpass is not suitable for their weight,” a spokesman for the Roads and Traffic Authority told AAP.
The truck involved in the crash was carrying chemicals and exploded in flames on impact, but Fire and Rescue NSW extinguished the blaze. One person from the car has been confirmed dead, but police say it’s not clear how many people were in the car when it crashed.
‘A Canberra man was lucky to escape without serious injury after the B-Double truck he was driving along the Boorowa Rd overturned at 6.15am on Wednesday morning. The 42 year old man lost control of the vehicle 2km south out of town and ran off the road, before the entire truck overturned and spilled out over both lanes of the road.
The overturned truck was carrying furniture and concrete slabs and left more than a dozen slabs scattered over the road. Local resident Russell Denning said he heard a ‘monstrous bang’ when the truck crashed on the road near his home.
Senior Constable John Newton said a lack of attention from the driver appears to be the cause of the accident but police are still investigating.
“At this stage it appears the driver was distracted but there are still final enquiries to be completed,” he said. “My understanding is the driver will receive an infringement for negligent driving.”
Since 12thMay 2005, Blue Mountains Swamps have been listed as an endangered ecological community under the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, (EPBC Act), as amended in 2005. Blue Mountains Swamps are listed under the scientific category of Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone.
The objectives of the EPBC Act include providing for the protection of the environment, especially matters of national environmental significance and to conserve Australian biodiversity. In the case of Blue Mountains Swamps, the EPBC Act serves to prevent the actions of land use developers and others posing a significant impact upon the integrity of these vital swamp ecosystems.
A Blue Mountains Swamp
…blatantly slashed, reclaimed and exotic grass introduced by this property development
on the wild edge of Katoomba, adjacent to the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
.
The steel fence of the development is built right into the Blue Mountains Swamp
(Photo by Editor 20120118, free in public domain, click to enlarge)
.
This housing development was approved by Blue Mountains Council.
At the same time, Blue Mountains Council’s Upland Swamp Rehabilitation Programme was commenced in 2006 after Blue Mountains Swamps were listed as part of the Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone endangered ecological community, with the aim of protecting and restoring Blue Mountains Swamp across the Local Government Area (LGA).
“In August 2008 Blue Mountains Council and Lithgow Council formed a partnership to deliver the ‘Saving our Swamps’ (S.O.S) project to restore Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone across both LGAs. With grant funding of $250,000 over 3 years from the Urban Sustainability program of the NSW Environmental Trust, the SOS project will both strengthen Blue Mountains Council’s long term Upland Swamp Rehabilitation Programme and transfer skills to build the capacity of Lithgow Council to protect the Newnes Plateau Shrub Swamp endangered ecological community of the Newnes Plateau.”
Local community volunteers helping Blue Mountains Council to rehabilitate Kitty Hawk Swamp at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains
[Source: Blue Mountains Council’s ‘Swampwatch’ Factsheet 7)
.
“The SOS initiative will build on the Blue Mountains Council’s Upland Swamp Rehabilitation Programme, by providing funds for bush regeneration, soft engineering swamp re-hydration and creek bank stabilization in degraded Blue Mountains Swamps on both public and private land. The project will also deliver a community and school education program to raise awareness of the significance of Blue Mountains Swamps and their associated threatened species and to explain how the community can assist in their protection.
The successful partnership between BMCC and LCC was expanded in 2009 to incorporate Wingecarribee Shire Council and Gosford Council. The resultant SOS stage 2 project received a $400,000 federal Caring for Country grant over 12 months to expand the model across all four LGAS under the leadership of Blue Mountains Council.”
Blue Mountains Council receiving $250,000 plus $400,000
to save Blue Mountains Swamps,
while approving development into them?
Saving Our Swamps by Council-approved slashing, bulldozing and reclamation This is immediately adjacent to the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
.
Location of Fifth Avenue adjacent to Blue Mountain National Park (BMNP) BMNP forms part of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
.
“This park, which is part of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, protects an unusually diverse range of vegetation communities. There are rare and ancient plants and isolated animal populations tucked away in its deep gorges.”
On Sunday 13th November 2006 two separate bushfire ignitions were believed to have been started by lightning just west of the Grose Valley of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, according to the Rural Fire Service (RFS). One ignition was located outside the small rural village of Hartley Vale in a valley referred to as Lawsons Long Alley, while the other was in rugged bushland at Burra Korain Head about 4 km east of the village of Mount Victoria. Ten days later catastrophe…
Pyrocumulus cloud as the Grose Valley goes up in smoke on 23rd November 2006
.
‘Two bushfires that were believed to have been started by lightning strikes on Monday are burning in the Blue Mountains National Park. A fire burning 2 km north of Mount Victoria has burnt out about 1100 hectares of private property and parkland and is burning on both sides of the Darling Causeway. The Darling Causeway remains closed to traffic and motorists are advised to use the Great Western Highway and Bells Line of Road as alternate routes.
A second fire burning about 5 km north of Blackheath in the Grose Valley has burnt out about 500 hectares of parkland. Waterbombing aircraft are slowing the progress of the fire as it is burning in difficult and inaccessible terrain.’
[Source: New South Wales Rural Fire Service Blue Mountains website, Fire Name: Lawsons Long Alley, Time Message Issued: 1700, Date Message Issued: 16/11/06, ^http://lists.rfs.org.au/mailman/listinfo/bluemountains-info]
.
At the time the RFS reported that the ‘fire is not threatening any properties or homes at this stage‘, but it was this reassurance that lulled the fire fighting effort into a false sense of security. Over the coming days the fires were not earnestly suppressed but instead allowed to burn out of control as neither were ‘threatening any properties or homes at this stage‘. Famous last words. Worse was that a series of broadscale backburns were started by the RFS at Hartley Vale, Blackheath and along Bells Line of Road – each of which at times got out of control.
.
Comparison with 2003 Canberra Firestorm
.
Three years prior, four ignitions that had been purportedly been sparked by lighting on 8th January 2003 were allowed to burn out of control in remote bushland outside Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), and starting outside the ACT in NSW. At the time, those fires were deemed not to be threatening any properties or homes at that stage too. Ten days later, the four fires – McIntyre’s Hut Fire, the Bendora Fire, the Stockyard Spur Fire and the Mount Gingera Fire all coalesced into what became known as the 2003 Canberra Firestorm in which four people perished.
McIntyre’s Hut Fire 20030108 – distant, isolated and remote at this stage.Ten days later it became the 2003 Canberra Firestorm
.
Three years hence, the two bushfires west of the Grose Valley after seven days had coalesced into what has become known as the 2006 Grose Valley Fires that ended up incinerating 14,070 hectares of wild bush habitat, including the iconic Blue Gum Forest down in the Grose Valley inside the Greater Blue Mountains World heritage Area .
Both catastrophic bushfires were ultimately the responsibility of the RFS in New South Wales to suppress in order to prevent them becoming uncontrollable firestorms. The RFS failed catastrophically on both occasions with RFS Commissioner Phil Koperberg at the helm. The lessons from the 2003 Canberra Firestorm had not been heeded.
An aerial view of a fire-devastated Chauvel Circle in the suburb of Chapman on 21st January, 2003 in Canberra, where 15 of 20 homes in the street were destroyed by fire. Four people were killed and 419 homes destroyed when the fires being fought on five fronts swept through the nation’s capital.
(Photo by Daniel Berehulak, Getty Images)
.
According to the report of the official enquiry into the 2003 Canberra Firestorm by ACT Coroner Maria Doogan, she states:
‘During the inquiry it was submitted that the severity of the firestorm could not have been foreseen. I do not accept this. Australia has a recorded history of extreme fire events dating back to at least 1851. As discussed in Chapter 7 (of the Coroner’s Report), CSIRO fire expert Phil Cheney predicted several years ago a conflagration of the type experienced in January 2003. He made his prediction on the basis of information in the report of one of the seven inquiries that have been held since 1986 to examine various aspects of the ACT’s emergency services.
‘The point to make here is that experiences in life, be they good or bad, serve no useful purpose if we fail to learn from them. It is hoped, therefore, that the many lessons that can be learnt from this catastrophe in the ACT are in fact learnt and result in positive action, not just supportive words and shallow promises.’
[Source: ‘The Canberra Firestorm: Inquest and Inquiry into Four Deaths and Four Fires between 8 and 18 January 2003’, Vol 1, Ch1, pp.2-3., by ACT Coroner]
.
Blue Mountains Council’s response to the 2006 Grose Valley Fires
.
The 2006 Grose Valley Fires coalesced into a conflagration on Thursday 23rd November 2006 down in the World Heritage Grose Valley. Many in the local Blue Mountains community were outraged that this could have been allowed to have occurred. Public demands for answers finally led Blue Mountains Council two months later on Tuesday 30th January 2007 to agree to support the call of ‘concerned residents’ for the New South Wales Government to undertake a thorough, independent review of the Grose Valley Fires.
It is important to note that at the time there was a Labor Government in New South Wales, which was ultimately held responsible for both the 2003 and 2006 bushfire emergency responses.
The following is a copy of the official meeting minutes of Blue Mountains Council’s Ordinary Meeting of 20070130, two months after the 2003 Grose Valley Fires:
.
‘A Motion was moved by Councillors (Terri) Hamilton (Independent) and (Daniel) Myles (Liberal):
. 1. That the Council gratefully acknowledges the efforts of all the volunteers, professionals and agencies that worked together to control the recent Grose Valley Fire.
.
2. That the Council, in order that improvements in fire management can continue for the Blue Mountains and other parts of NSW, as a matter of urgency, writes to the Premier of New South Wales, the Hon Morris Iemma, stating it supports the call of concerned residents on the New South Wales Government, which appeared on page 13 of the Blue Mountains Gazette of 6 December, 2006, as follows:
“1. Undertake a thorough, independent review of the Grose Valley Fire, involving all stakeholders with particular attention to the following questions:
Were fire detection and initial suppression timely and adequate?
Were resources adequate, appropriate and supported?
Were the adopted strategies the best available under the circumstances?
Could other strategies of closer containment have offered lower risk to the community, better firefighter safety, higher probabilities of success, lower costs and less impact on the environment?
Was existing knowledge and planning adequately utilised?
Is fire management funded to the most effective way?
2. Ensure adequate funding is available for post-fire restoration, including the rehabilitation of environmental damage.
3. Fund more research to improve understanding of fire in the Blue Mountains landscape and methods for fire mitigation and suppression.
4. Improve research and training in strategies for controlling fires in large bushland areas.
5. Improve pre-fire planning to support decision-making during incidents.
6. Improve systems to ensure that local fire planning and expertise is fully utilised during incidents, and that the protection of the natural and cultural values of World Heritage areas and other bushland are fully considered.”
. 3. That the independent review includes addressing the questions raised by Blue Mountains Conservation Society:
a. The Blue Mountains City Council therefore supports the following adopted position of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society and would like the review to address the following questions:
i. In what circumstances are back burning from the “Northern Strategic Line” and the Bells Line of Road appropriate? ii. What can be improved to ensure that lightning strikes or arson fires are contained as quickly as possible? iii. What can be done to better manage fire risk in the Grose Valley in terms of preparation and suppression to minimise damage to people, property and biodiversity? iv. What is needed to allow remote area fire teams to be able to work at night when conditions are more benign? v. How can funding of bushfire management and suppression be changed to reduce overall costs to the community. (Federal funding of suppression under section 44 means funding for trail maintenance and planning is limited.)
.
b. If practicable, would the review also address the following?
i. The World Heritage Area contains a number of threatened species and ecological communities that, in addition to the direct threats associated with climate change, are particularly vulnerable to increased fire frequency and intensity. ii. The effects on biodiversity of the fire regimes in the Grose Valley over the last 40 years, where there has been a succession of large intense wild fires without sufficient interval between them. iii. Climate change predictions suggest a probability of more frequent and more intensive fire events, with significant implications for fire management and integrity of ecosystems. iv. The Blue Mountains City Council also supports and requests involvement in the forum being organised by the Director of the Central Branch of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Bob Conroy, on the 17 February 2007.
. 4. That the Council emphasises that the requested review should be of a scientific and technical nature.
.
5. That a copy of this letter be forwarded to the Minister for Emergency Services, the Hon Tony Kelly, the Member for the Blue Mountains, the Hon. Bob Debus, and the New South Wales Opposition Leader, Peter Debnam.
.
Upon being PUT to the Meeting, the MOTION was CARRIED, the voting being:
FOR:
Fiona Creed (Liberal)
Terri Hamilton (Independent)
Pippa McInnes (Greens)
Daniel Myles (Liberal)
Kerrin O’Grady (Greens)
Lyn Trindall (Blue Mountains First
.
AGAINST:
Mayor Jim Angel (Labor)
Kevin Frappell (Labor)
Alison McLaren (Labor)
Adam Searle (Labor)
Chris Van der Kley (Liberal) and Chair of Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee
The Hartley Vale backburn 20061115 escaped up Hartley Vale Road and over the Darling Causeway (above) toward the Grose Valley to the right
(Photo by Editor 20070204, free in pubic domain, click to enlarge)
..
Editor’s Note:
Ahead of the Blue Mountains Council voting for the above motion, two Labor Councillors, Clr Chris Van der Kley (also Chair of the Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee) and Clr Kevin Frappell (Labor) moved an alternative motion, however it was lost upon voting. This proposed alternative motion was labelled an ‘amendment’ but it was significantly different in detail. The proposed amendment excluded calls for an independent review (per the first item in the original motion).
This proposed amendment also excluded asking the six key questions put by the concerned residents such as ‘Were fire detection and initial suppression timely and adequate?‘, ‘Is fire management funded to the most effective way?‘, etc.
This proposed amendment also excluded that part of Item 1 which recommended strategic improvements to bushfire management such as ‘Ensure adequate funding is available for post-fire restoration, including the rehabilitation of environmental damage‘ and ‘Fund more research to improve understanding of fire in the Blue Mountains landscape and methods for fire mitigation and suppression‘, etc.
This proposed amendment instead drew upon the view of the leadership of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society at the time that considered an independent enquiry would equate to criticism and assigning blame and so be politicised. This did however include advocating “an interagency and technical review process, to tease out the lessons learned.”
.
The Amendment (although lost in the Council voting) is important for the record and read as follows:
1. That the Blue Mountains City Council gratefully acknowledges the efforts of all the volunteers, professionals and agencies that worked together to control the recent Grose
Valley fire.
. 2. That the Blue Mountains City Council supports the recent position adopted by the Blue Mountains Conservation Society in relation to the Grose Valley fire in November
2006. We note and support the position of the Society when it says,
“The circumstances of the bushfire are complex and it is not in anyone’s interest for criticism or blame to be apportioned. However, there is much to be gained by looking at what was done and how it can be improved. The Society does not therefore support a large public inquiry and its attendant politicisation. Instead, the Society advocates an interagency and technical review process, to tease out the lessons learned.”
.
3. That the Blue Mountains City Council therefore supports the following adopted position of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society and would like the review to
address the following questions:
In what circumstances are back burning from the “Northern Strategic Line” and the Bells Line of Road appropriate?
What can be improved to ensure that lightning strikes or arson fires are contained as quickly as possible?
What can be done to better manage fire risk in the Grose Valley in terms of preparation and suppression to minimise damage to people, property and biodiversity?
What is needed to allow remote area fire teams to be able to work at night when conditions are more benign?
How can funding of bushfire management and suppression be changed to reduce overall costs to the community. (Federal funding of suppression under Section 44 means funding for trail maintenance and planning is limited.)
.
If practicable, would the review also address the following?
The World Heritage Area contains a number of threatened species and ecological communities that, in addition to the direct threats associated with climate change, are particularly vulnerable to increased fire frequency and intensity.
The effects on biodiversity of the fire regimes in the Grose Valley over the last 40 years, where there has been a succession of large intense wild fires without
sufficient interval between them.
Climate change predictions suggest a probability of more frequent and more intensive fire events, with significant implications for fire management and
integrity of ecosystems.
That the Blue Mountains City Council also supports and requests involvement in the forum being organised by the Director of the Central Branch of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Bob Conroy, on the 17 February 2007.
.
Upon being PUT to the Meeting, the AMENDMENT was LOST, the voting being:
FOR:
Mayor Jim Angel (Labor)
Kevin Frappell (Labor)
Alison McLaren (Labor)
Adam Searle (Labor)
Chris Van der Kley (Liberal, and Chair of Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee)
.
AGAINST:
Creed (Liberal)
Hamilton (Independent)
McInnes (Greens)
Myles (Liberal)
O’Grady (Greens)
Trindall (Blue Mountains First)
.
[Source: Blue Mountains Council’s Ordinary Meeting, 20070130, Minute No. 7, File Ref. C01095. Subject: ‘Grose Valley Fire’, pp.15-16]
.
Editor’s Analysis:
.
Similar failure by the RFS and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to muster all available necessary resources to suppress and extinguished both the Lawson’s Long Alley and Burra Korain Head fires, demonstrated that lessons from the 2003 Canberra Firestorm had not been learnt. Critical time was lost in the initial days of the ignitions at both to effectively suppress the fires while they were of a small size and weather conditions relatively favourable to enable suppression.
The RFS strategy to apply excessive broadscale backburning on multiple fronts at at Hartley Vale, Blackheath and Bells Line of Road exacerbated the complexity and scale of both fires and in the most part contributed to the conflagration of all the fires down in the Grose Valley on 23rd November 2006
The shortcoming of not mustering all necessary resources to suppress and extinguish bushfires, irrespective of whether a fire is immediately affecting property and homes or not, is flawed, negligent and only heightens the inherent risk of a bushfire escalating out of control. The risk of a bushfire escalation into uncontrollable firestorm is heightened as time allows for the prospect of worsening bushfire weather conditions – increased wind, wind gusts, wind direction, temperatures, and lowering humidity – contributory factors in both the respective Canberra and Grose Valley Fires. There is no indication that this operational culture has changed.
That a bushfire is situated in inaccessible terrain is not an excuse for bushfire management not to muster all airborne and RAFT resources to suppress and extinguish it as soon as feasibly possible
After local community realisation that the bushfire had overrun the Grose Valley including burning through the iconic Blue Gum Forest on 23rd November, an informal collection of local ‘concerned residents‘ formed numbering 143 and co-ordinated by Blue Mountains resident Ian Brown. By Wednesday 6th December, within days of the fire finally being suppressed (3rd Dec), this informal group had collectively paid for a full page letter in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper costing $2,131.40(page 13). The letter was entitled ‘Burning Issues – fire in the Grose Valley – A statement funded and supported by concerned residents‘. The context was that detailed in Council’s carried motion above.
Blue Mountains Council’s response was simply a manifestation of the “supportive words and shallow promises” whom ACT Coroner Maria Doogan had cautioned in the Coroner’s Report into the 2003 Canberra Firestorm. No effective Council follow up to its supportive words was undertaken. Sure per Council’s carried motion, Council’s then acting General Manager, Dave Allen, sent off the letter with supportive words to the NSW Premier Morris Iemma, on 20th February 2007, but Council took no other review or enquiry action.
In the Central Blue Mountains, there are three government agencies responsible for bushfire management – the New South Wales Rural Fires Service, the National Parks and Wildlife Service as part of the NSW Department of Environment (what ever its frequently changing title) and Blue Mountains Council. Collectively these three bodies have co-operated under the Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee, which was/is chaired by Blue Mountains Councillor Chris van der Kley.) and is responsible for planning in relating to bush fire prevention and coordinated bush fire fighting, as well as responsible for advising the Commissioner on bush fire prevention; mitigation and coordinated bush fire suppression. Included on the Committee is also the Commissioner of the RFS, and a nominated representative respectively from the NSW Fire Brigades, Forests NSW, NPWS, the Local Government Association of NSW, the Shires Association of NSW, the NSW Rural Fire Service Association, NSW Police, a nominee of the Minister for the Environment (then Bob Debus), a representative of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, a person appointed by the Minister on the recommendation of the NSW Farmers Association, a representative of the Department of Community Services and a representative of the Department of Lands. In March 2008, the Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee (BMBFMC) staged a series of community workshops on the Plan’s review process. The Plan was approved on 14th December 2000 with a required review every five years. So by the Grose Valley Fire, the Plan was a year out of date and by March 2008 the Plan was three years out of date.
It is not surprisingly that the above proposed amendment to the Council letter to the NSW Premier excluded calls for an independent review. Those who proposed the motion and who voted for it were either all Labor Party members or in the case of Liberal Councillor Chris Van Der Kley, Chair of the Blue Mountains Bush Fire Management Committee who was operationally involved. An independent enquiry and the proposed strategic improvements to the bushfire management establishment would have likely revealed operational and government failings and recommended changes to the RFS structure, strategies, and management and importantly to its culture. The amendment was rejected anyway due to Labor having insufficient votes on Council.
On Sunday 13th November 2006 two separate bushfire ignitions were believed to have been lit by lightning just west of the Grose Valley of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area by the RFS. Following a back burn/hazard reduction burn that had got out of control up Hartley Vale Road and crossed the Darling Causeway, on Wednesday 15th November the RFS declared a formal escalation to a Section 44 bushfire emergency. This four day delay in detection and suppression is unexplained by the RFS.
Despite the calls by the concerned residents (with Blue Mountains Council’s supportive words) for the ‘NSW Government to undertake a thorough, independent review of the Grose Valley Fire, involving all stakeholders, so such independent review was done.
The local Labor member for the NSW Seat of Blue Mountains at the time and NSW Minister for the Environment was Bob Debus MP, who categorically refused requests for either an independent review or a public review into the management of the Grose Valley Fires.
The Blue Mountains Conservation Society (BMCS) similarly rejected calls for a public enquiry, stating “the circumstances of the bushfire are complex and it is not in anyone’s interest for criticism or blame to be apportioned. However, there is much to be gained by looking at what was done and how it can be improved. The Society does not therefore support a large public inquiry and its attendant politicisation. Instead, the Society advocates an inter-agency and technical review process, to tease out the lessons learned.” It needs to be pointed out that key committee members of the BMCS were/are also active members of the RFS, which raises the issue of and actual or perceived conflict of interest.
There were two reviews of sorts, none independent and none public.
On Tuesday 19th December 2006 there was apparently an ‘Inter-Agency Review‘ which took place at Katoomba behind closed doors by members of bushfire management and operating personnel involved in the fire fighting. Despite requests by this Editor, no minutes or reports of that meeting were ever forthcoming. The meeting was internal and secret.
On Saturday 17th February 2007, there was a ‘Grose Valley Fire Forum‘ held at Mount Tomah organised by Director of the Central Branch of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Bob Conroy, and the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute. Only selected participants were permitted to attend – mainly from the bushfire management, fire experts and selected members of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society. A copy of the report of that forum will be publicised on this website shortly.
Following ongoing community concerns about the lack of transparency, no evidence of any lessons being learned from the Grose Valley Fires and even of a cover up into some of the operational decisions, in January 2007 Bob Debus MP announced a suggestion of there being an Environmental Summit to be staged in the Blue Mountains to provide the first public forum into important environmental issues affecting the Blue Mountains region, notably to discuss the Grose Valley Fire. Well, by the time the summit eventuated it was over a year later and held on the weekend of 23rd and 24th February 2008. By then Bob Debus had moved to federal politics (though still representing the Blue Mountains via the Seat of Macquarie. The summit was chaired by the RFS Commissioner responsible for the 2006 Grose Valley Fires, Philk Koperberg (now local Labor MP) and even the bushfire Incident Controller of the 2006 Grose Valley Fires, RFS Superintendent Mal Cronstedt, was in attendance. However, the summit was now called a conference and the agenda had expanded to many issues including Energy, Social Systems, Natural Systems and Water. Discussion about bushfire was restricted to a two hour workshop and so available time to the Grose Fire to one or two questions which copped only official spiel. It was a classic Labor tactic or stalling on accountability until the community gives up or forgets.
Since 2006, the Blue Mountains community still doesn’t know whether in the 2006 Grose Valley Fire or currently:
Fire detection and initial suppression was/is timely and adequate?
Whether bushfire management resources were/are adequate, appropriate and supported?
Whether in the Grose Valley Fire the adopted strategies were the best available under the circumstances?
Whether other strategies of closer containment could have offered lower risk to the community
Whether currently it has better firefighter safety, higher probabilities of success, lower costs and will cause less impact on the environment?
Whether existing knowledge and planning is adequately utilised?
Whether bushfire management is funded to the most effective way?
Is adequate funding available for post-fire restoration, including the rehabilitation of environmental damage?
.
Another three years hence, in the Blue Mountains we have witnessed from afar the catastrophic Victorian ‘Black Saturday’ Bushfires of 7th February 2009.
.
Another three years hence in 2012, have we learnt anything?
The site of Blue Mountains Significant Tree #5 – it was a massive Eucalyptus oreades
~ Our endemic heritage woodchipped into oblivion
Lest we forget!
(Photo of Editor 20120111, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
This mature native tree was respected enough to have been listed on Blue Mountain Council’s Significant Tree Register. Indeed it was the 5th such listed tree on Blue Mountains Council’s Register of Significant Trees back in 1988.
So what is the meaning of a ‘Significant Tree‘ on Blue Mountains Council’s register?
Well back on 21st June 1988 the Register of Significant Trees was adopted by Blue Mountains Council as an integral part of its Development Control Plan, which proclaimed significant trees be protected under Clause 6 ‘Protection of Items Listed in the Register of Significant Trees‘ so that:
.
‘No person shall ringbark, cut down, top, lop, injure, wilfully destroy or cause damage to the root system off any tree listed on the Register of Significant trees without consent of Council.’
.
Perhaps the current Blue Mountains Council mayor may care to publicly explain why its Significant Tree Number 5, a locally endemic Eucalyptus oreades (Blue Mountains Ash) of some stature located opposite 252 Old Bathurst Road Katoomba (Lot 2 DP707) has been woodchipped into oblivion?
Was formal Blue Mountains Council consent given to kill it?
If so, when was this Blue Mountains Council consent given to kill it?
What Blue Mountains Council documentation is publicly available to validate such consent?
What public notice was provided by Blue Mountains Council for community consultation about its killing?
Does Blue Mountains Council give a bleeding toss?
.
The objectives of Blue Mountains Council’s Significant Tree Register include:
.
(a) identify and protect those trees listed on the Register
(b) promote greater public awareness of the existence of the Register, and the individual items listed
(c) ensure existing and, importantly, prospective land owners, are made aware of the Significant Trees which may be located on their property
(d) ensure correct on-going care and maintenance of those trees listed, through the recommendations included with the significant tree register
.
The following tree is not even on the Blue Mountains Council Significant Tree Register, so has even less chance of protection.
Katoomba’s most significant (grandfather) Eucalyptus oreades, beside Megalong Street
Pitifully it manages to survive as an extremely rare relic of the once magnificent Oreades Forest
This tree is ‘endemic’ to the Central Upper Blue Mountains at Katoomba
(That is, it grows naturally nowhere else on the friggin Planet!)
(Photo of Editor 20120111, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
But this tree is perpetually being subjected by Blue Mountains Council approved industrial development after industrial development – the road widening, the recent expansion of the bus depot across the road and now some ‘mega industrial’ estate behind it. Blue Mountains Council pro-development forces are mounting against it.
.
The Mega industrial development immediately behind this magnificent native tree
~ but what would BMCC care?
(Photo by Habitat Investigator 20120111, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
The Theo Poulos promoted ‘Mega Industrial Park’
excavated right behind this rare, significant Eucalyptus oreades,
~ as if the developer or Theo Poulos gives a crap!
(Photo by Habitat Investigator 20120111, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
But then Blue Mountains Council’s so-called Significant Tree Register has always been a crock of deceptive community greenwashing!
As soon as any tree on its register becomes slightly inconvenient, our pro-development Blue Mountains Council, strangled by Liberal-Labor Party vested interests, easily turns a blind eye to significant Blue Mountain heritage and no more significant tree.
Is it any wonder that as the Blue Mountains is allowed to be developed and its natural amenity destroyed that outsiders no longer see the Blue Mountains as a significant attraction, but more as an extension of Sydney sprawl? They just speed past on that forever faster, noisier and more dangerous Trucking Expressway!
[This article was initially published by Tigerquoll on CanDoBetter.net 20090626, in the aftermath of the Victorian Bushfires which conflagrated on 20090207]
.
The Australian Press Council has just dismissed a complaint against Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine about her ‘opinion’ article back on 12-Feb-09 ‘Green ideas must take blame for deaths.’
But although provocative, Devine’s ‘opinion‘ article pales in comparison to the social implications of headline media reporting of extreme bushfire risk immediately BEFORE the bushfires! [‘Complaint against Devine dismissed’, SMH, 26-Jun-09, p.5]
Note that the date of the article was made while fires still raged. Also, note that the article was published on the front page of the Herald, indicating that the editor was unusually highly supportive of it. Normally, the Herald’s ‘Opinion and Letter’s‘ articles are printed way back around page 12.
The main inflammatory bits drawing criticism in Devine’s article were:
.
“It wasn’t climate change which killed as many as 300 people in Victoria last weekend…it was the power of green ideology over government to oppose attempts to reduce fuel hazards before a megafire erupts.” [and] “If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but greenies.”
.
Clearly, the article’s emotive tone expresses anger, frustration, retaliation and spiteful provocation. Perhaps this is understandable given the scale of the disaster and public shock, disbelief and for many, the personal loss. People react in their own way to tragedy. Devine’s article upset many and presumably it was intended to in order to unseat entrenched community complacency about Australia’s bushfire management generally.
If so I agree with her motive, but not her method.
The Australian Press Council considered the article’s lead paragraphs as ‘dogmatic’ and ‘confrontational’. But the complainants asserted that the article breached a number of Press Council principles. Yet the Press Council’s principles or journalism are vague and advocate the rights of journalists rather than prescribing responsibilities. The principles include noble motherhood ideals such as being accurate, fair and balanced, not being misleading, acting in the public interest and not being biased against minority groups. So then perhaps the complainants were misguided and it is not surprising that the Press Council found that publicising the article didn’t breach any of these principles.
Devine was accused of incitement in her article, which is a fair interpretation.
On Crikey, Greg Barns questions whether Devine’s article incited violence. He suggests that in “these fraught times, where there is a smell of blood in the air as well as smoke, as communities, individuals and the media look to find someone to blame for the Victorian bushfires, are just the environment where incitement flourishes.” Barns goes on: “To date no one appears to have acted on the inflammatory statements of Ms Devine and her fellow sabre rattlers, but that does not matter, says the law. It is enough that the incitement to commit a offence occurs, it is irrelevant that no one acted on the statement made.”
In the press at the time, local anger in Gippsland was palpable and vigilante feeling clearly was at breaking point. But it was targeted at the arsonists.
No-one rationally can blame the conservation movement and its ecological principles for the Victorian Bushfires. The bush and its creatures were innocent victims of the fires, just like people, livestock and houses. Many tend to forget this in the wake of such enormous tragedy. But one must blame the arsonists.
Yet it wasn’t apparently just arsonists that caused the ignitions and it is the task of Brumby’s Royal Commission to investigate and find out the causes of all the ignitions. However, thereafter, the real problem solving should start, but I doubt Brumby will have the will and instead will want to close the political door on the bushfire tragedy – just like the bushfire investigations of the past and interstate.
.
But let’s turn more importantly to the media incitement before the bushfires!
The Age newspaper in Melbourne during the Victorian heatwave through January and early February 2009 immediately preceding the bushfires, ran headlines repeating the extreme bushfire risk. On 6 February 2009, the day before the fires started, indeed the Premier of Victoria John Brumby issued a warning about the extreme weather conditions expected on 7 February:
“It’s just as bad a day as you can imagine and on top of that the state is just tinder-dry.
People need to exercise real common sense tomorrow”.
.
Was this wise?
To serial dormant bush arsonists and to would be arsonists, this frenzied media excitement about such pending doom surely would have been been read by arsonists and I suggest directly incited the bush arson. Yet at the time there was no complaining or realisation of this.
If bush arsonists are found to have been the key causes of the ignitons and indeed of the most catestrophic firestorms that burt alive people for instance Marysville and Kinglake, then the investigation must focus on the root cause of the arsonist motivations. I argue that media arousal through its sensationalising of the bushfire risk and its portrayal of the bushfire threat is directly responsible and accountable for actual bush arson. Let’s see what the Royal Commission concludes.
.
Compare the Media Restrictions on Reporting of Suicide
.
Getting back to the subject of press responsibility, let’s look at where the Press Council actually prescribes reporting restrictions on journalists.
Take the subject of media reporting of suicide.
In the Council’s General Press Release No. 246 (i) (July 2001) on Reporting of Suicide, The Press Council:
“calls upon the press to continue to exercise care and responsibility in reporting matters of suicide consistent with government attempts to curb the suicide rate. Research shows that an association exists between media portrayal of suicide and actual suicide, and that in some cases the link is causal. So the Press Council recommends journalists avoid reporting which might encourage copy-cat suicides and which unnecessary references details of or the place of a suicide, or which uses language which trivialises, romanticises, or glorifies suicide.”
So on the sensitive topic of suicide, the Press Council is quite prescriptive, moreso than in its broader principles for journalists rights.
Serious thought needs to be given by all levels of government and by the Press Council as the media industry’s representative body to the reporting of bushfire risks. Just as links can be drawn between the media portrayal of suicide and actual suicide, causal links can be drawn between the media portrayal of bushfire risk and bush arson arousal.
This is a matter for criminal psychology. Media sensationalising of bushfire risk and of bush arson is known to incite bush arson and copy-cat bush arson. This is a little known and neglected form of social deviant behaviour, yet it has become increasingly prevalent and deadly.
There is an urgent need for national level investment into bush arson criminology research and investigations. Media rights and responsibility for reporting bushfires play a critical role, perhaps more than many of us realise.
.
Editor’s submission to ABC Four Corners ahead of its programme ‘Two Days in Hell’ aired 20090216
Thank you for highlighting this perennial problem.
The Australian Institute of Criminology reported last month that half of Australian bushfires are deliberately lit. Bushfire research needs to go further to evaluate whether in fact of the most damaging most are deliberately lit.
Test: If one excluded arson ignitions and their related spotover fires (between 29 Jan at Delburn to 8 Feb) would the firestorms have occurred? Assuming the answer is no, then clearly arson must be Australia’s key focus in combating the impacts of bushfire. Unlike the other two causes of bushfire, (lightning and accident) which are random, bush arson targets the worst conditions, upwind of a specific target and often involving multiple ignitions.
The term ‘fire bug’ is too docile and to start seriously dealing with it, we must change the perception and the language. Bush arson has become so deadly and catastrophic a crime that it warrants the term ‘pyroterrorism’. See the application of this term in the recent California fires. [^http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/thepyroterroristsarecoming.html]
The forthcoming Royal Commission into the Victorian Bushfires of 2009 risks concluding similar theme recommendations as the 2004 COAG Enquiry into the 2003 Canberra Firestorm, which itself repeated those of many previous bushfire enquiries. The implementation of any recommendations requires budget, timeframe and an independent federal watchdog accountable to the public. I will be analysing its terms of reference.
Aside from serious resourcing of bush fire fighting (nationalising it, building approvals, building codes, etc), the key systemic problem is the cultural disconnect between bushfire research and fire fighting practice. Criminal arson investigation needs to be a permanent and dedicated arm of bushfire management, properly resourced with primary data collected from all Australia and overseas using the best criminal psychologists and with a proactive mandate.
In NSW, the government set up Strike Force Tronto to investigate serial bush arsonist after the Christmas 2001 bushfires. Then the government got complacent, other priorities emerged and it was disbanded in 2005.
But following a series of arson bushfires in 2006 (with houses lost in (Picton and Cattai) the force was reinstated on 26 Sep 06 (Daily Telegraph p1). Reactive sporadic resourcing of bush arson investigation clearly isn’t effective.
To seriously address the main cause of deadly bushfires, a national organisation needs to be permanently established and perpetually funded to focus on criminal investigation into bush arson/pyroterrorism with a mandate to recommend deterrent policies and practices across Australian bushfire fighting as well as the media.
Media reporting leading up to the 7-Feb-09 firestorms, simply incited dormant serial arsonists. Go back and read The Age and television media in the days before and after 29 Jan when the first bush arsonist struck at Delburn (south wast of Churchill). The front page of The Age on Saturday 7-Feb-09 read: ’44 degree heat “as bad a day as you can imagine”
– which was a quote from of all people the Victorian Premier made to the general public the day prior.
Just like the media policy of not reporting suicides due it being known to encourage copy cats, so too media reporting of heatwaves and of extreme bushfire conditions needs to be tempered to avoid inciting dormant serial arsonists.
.
‘The Fire Starters’ – ABC TV Four Corners programme of 2003 about bush arson in NSW, following a spate of bush arson
[Source: “The Fire Starters”, ABC TV Four Corners programme, 20030224, ^http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2003/20030224_fire_starters/default.htm]
.
‘It’s a summer ritual: fire fighters across Australia battling hundreds of bushfires, putting themselves at risk to save other people’s lives and property. But these men and women are confronting dangers they should never have to face. While most fires, like the recent Canberra inferno, are ignited by lightning strikes or by stray sparks, investigators say a growing proportion of fires are being deliberately lit – by serial arsonists playing havoc in the bush.
As Australia tallies the cost of one of its worst bushfire seasons, Four Corners looks at the devastation that firebugs wreak on the landscape and the fear they generate in vulnerable communities. Reporter Stephen McDonell focuses on two communities where a firebug has been at work. In one case the arsonist has been caught and jailed; in the other the offender remains at large, apparently still living among anxious neighbours who suspect his every move.
McDonell builds a profile of offenders who typically crave power and status. For all their fundamental inadequacies, arsonists often presents normally enough to other people – even to their fellow volunteers in the local fire service. Authorities are fighting a difficult battle against these elusive, superficially unremarkable people, whose crimes rely on secrecy, solitude and destruction of evidence.’
.
Interview by ABC journalis Stephen McDonell with NSW Police Assistant Commissioner John Laycock (edited transcript):
.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: It’s been suggested by some people there should be a full time arson squad in NSW, do you think that we’re getting to the stage where that’s what we need?
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER JOHN LAYCOCK: Well there is at the moment. With the establishment of Strike Force Tronto last year, that will be ongoing on a needs basis and we saw very quickly in October this year how quickly that Task Force got up and running.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: You don’t think though there’s a need for developing some expertise in the area, have a team specifically designed just to look at arson?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Well, we have that now with Strike Force Tronto and in addition to the permanent team, we’re also training up investigators right across the state to look at the fire investigations across the board so we’re fairly well on top of that now.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Can you just tell us the thinking that’s led to you having a team that is assembled as the need arises rather than having a full time squad?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look Strike Force Tronto is virtually full time on a needs basis. We started off in 2001 with the large volume of fires in the state. It took a little time to get that up and running but that expertise and the database and the skill they’ve learnt from that has now flowed to, very quickly, starting up (Strike Force) Tronto II. So, whilst ever the actual need is there, the strike force will be there to assist. In addition to that, you’d normally find that between bushfires or wild fires there’s a three or four year gap. We have 94, 97, then 2001, on this occasion we’ve had two years in a row so the need this year is unusual to say the least.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: If you were asked if bushfire arson is getting worse, what would you say to that?
JOHN LAYCOCK: No I don’t think so. I think the reporting of it has improved. All our local area commands now are on the scene as soon as it occurs, they’re investigating the fires straight away. In the past that might not have always been the case. With Strike Force Tronto up and running, all fires are investigated and eliminated: whether it’s accidental or lightning or what have you and others are put aside for further investigation.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So you don’t think we’re getting more bushfire arson?
JOHN LAYCOCK: I think the community’s become more up to date and aware of arsonists being involved. The majority of our people apprehended are done by information from the public and, in a lot of cases, actually apprehended by people from the community and people are just sick and tired of people being involved lighting fires so they’re doing something about it which is great.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So, in other words, are you saying that while the statistics might bear out something of an increase, it’s really just that more people are being caught?
JOHN LAYCOCK: That’s one interpretation. In addition to that: our scientific skills, our forensic skills – with both the Rural Fire Service and the NSW Fire Brigade, with our own forensic people – have enhanced tremendously. Technology has increased. There’s a lot more out there that we can use, we can tap into, and plus the skill level of our people on all fronts has also increased.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Just on the question of your ability to investigate bushfires, what would you say is the area that has come on the most, that is changing the fastest and is enabling you to catch people?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look without doubt the technology, our forensics, the scientific people, our research people. We tap into overseas data; we tap into overseas experts. Our own local people here are well down the road to being able to fully investigate a fire, to track it from A to Z, with help from the community. Our crime scene investigation has enhanced tremendously and it’s improving all the time. There’s satellite inventory; there’s aerial photography; there’s video links; there’s a whole raft of things we can tap into now.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: I’ve seen some statistics that show that while the offending appears to be going up, the clear up rate remains static, what would you attribute that to?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Probably wouldn’t agree with that entirely and I think I can play with figures with the best of them. For example, in our 2001 fires, there were 22 people charged straight out with arson. There was another 130, 140 odd processed for various breaches, minor breaches of the Rural Fires Act and other Acts of parliament. None of those persons have re-offended again this year to our knowledge. Now most arsonists I think you’d have to agree are not sort of rocket scientists and one would expect that, if they were continuing to offend, they would be apprehended. That hasn’t occurred. So I don’t think the clear up rate has decreased per se. I think the instance of reporting and investigation activity has increased.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: What do you think that those statistics tell us about the impact that catching people has on their likelihood of them re-offending when it comes to bushfire arson?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look, again, with the number of people we’ve processed – from those that went to gaol, to those who were fined, cautioned or were conferenced – none of those people have re-offended to our knowledge, which indicates whatever process did take place, whether it be gaol or a caution or bond or what have you, has worked in that case. In addition to that, all persons processed have been, their details have been given to our our local area command so at the first sign of an investigation being required, those people would have their names up as a possible suspect to get looked at so the heat is on if I can use that phrase for those people locally in the first instance.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: We’ve spoken to one person who suggested that part of the problem with catching people when it comes to bushfire arson is that crime scene can be totally destroyed, especially if the fire moves over it a couple of times, would you agree with that?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Probably to the contrary and our forensic capacity with the Rural Fire Service, the Fire Brigade, our own forensic people now has increased to the extent that we can get a lot of information from the crime scene long after the fire has gone.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So, even if a big fire has moved through an area, there’s still a lot there at the crime scene?
JOHN LAYCOCK: There’s a lot of signs, there’s a lot of expertise, and we tap into a lot of stuff still left behind and, as I keep saying, cold fires leave hot trails.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: How sophisticated would you describe the bushfire arsonists as compared to other criminals?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Not very sophisticated: they’re certainly not rocket scientists. Arson is an unusual crime because there’s no financial profit or gain. There’s normally no great planning goes into it: it’s unusual, to say the least. I think that the people involved are possibly not of brilliant intelligence.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Do you think that, across Australia, we’re doing enough to catch bushfire arsonists?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look we can always do more but here in NSW the community is up and running. The number of reports we get through crime stoppers, continually, for the police to act upon is encouraging to say the least. The number of a people apprehended at fire scenes, lighting fires where people got out of their cars and physically grabbed hold of them where they’re capable of doing it and just hand them over to the police just shows a no nonsense approach. The three organisations working together -with the Rural Fire Service and the Fire Brigade – it’s ongoing, I think we’re doing a lot, we can always do more but, as each year goes on, our expertise increases.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Do you ever worry about discussion in the media relating to bushfire arson: that it might encourage copycat behaviour?
JOHN LAYCOCK: And certainly I think that does occur (but) to what extent…? but we have to weigh up the public interest – the need for the public to know what is happening around them. We’ve found, with the community support, with the open campaigns we’ve been running, they’ve been nothing short of outstanding.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: If we could just look at why one of the cases that your team has dealt with, the Burgess case, can you just tell us, from the outset, what the idea was in terms of when you heard that he was hanging around this brigade in the Blue Mountains, what did you intend to do, especially in relation to that brigade?
JOHN LAYCOCK: We first got some information not long after the fire season started in relation to that offender and I can only speak in general terms. Information is fine but we needed sufficient evidence to place him before a court, it was obvious to us that he was a very firm suspect. We then tapped into the support from the Rural Fire Service. We spoke to the executive and we virtually placed him under surveillance. They did report issues to us. We had our surveillance teams actually follow him from site to site. In the meantime, in the background, our forensic people were linking the crime scenes together and, of course, you’re aware he’s virtually working from one part of the state to the other – from the Central Coast down to Albury and then up to the Blue Mountains, so a fairly wide area – but we were able to link him into all those scenes. Our surveillance people tracked him into places where fire had been lit, just a painstaking good thorough investigation by Strike Force Tronto Police.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Now, for people who don’t know much about crime and the detection of crime, can you explain what this linking of the crime scenes was and how significant that was?
JOHN LAYCOCK: It was quite significant because each offender has their own way of doing things or committing a crime – quite, sort of, peculiar to anybody else – so no arsonists would work alike, as a general statement. So the way in which the fires are lit at all locations were almost identical and that gives us a guide only to the fact that he was the person responsible. But it’s not just the crime scene, it’s sightings, information from other people in the community, people from the Rural Fire Service that felt things weren’t quite right, that was all fed into our system to give us enough to get out and charge him.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So, is this right, it was something like that there was a pattern to his behaviour, is that right, that he was doing similar sorts of things?
JOHN LAYCOCK: There was a pattern to the way he was committing the offences, which showed very promising signs to us.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: What could you say about Burgess’s behaviour that led you to actually apprehend him?
JOHN LAYCOCK: It wasn’t so much his behaviour, I think it was the investigation results from behind the scenes. Evidence from witnesses, admissible evidence we could place before a court, the linkages between the forensics at the crime scenes and the fact that we were able to place him at those particular sites either before, after or during a particular fire breakout. That’s the cold hard evidence that we need.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: I think you were saying something before about his behaviour being consistent and that, because he didn’t vary it so much, you were able to say right, bang, bang that he did all those, lit all those fires. Can you just tell us a bit about that?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Yeah, look we have to prove each individual fire by itself. We just can’t say that we think it’s him because all the fires appear to have lit the same way. We need admissible evidence to place before a court to put him at the scene and, what happens at the crime scene, there’s only a small part of the jigsaw. So each investigation needs to be complete and be able to stand in its own right but the common factor was the linkage between the crime scenes.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Can you tell us a bit about how Cameron Burgess’s behaviour assisted police in catching him?
JOHN LAYCOCK: I think: in the way that he exposed himself to other members of the fire fighting fraternity; that he was always there at the crime scene, he was in the locations at the time when the fires went up; on occasions he actually went to help fight the fire, it didn’t do him any favours when we started putting the brief together.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: So you could see the same sorts of things coming up again and again?
JOHN LAYCOCK: There was a pattern there but there was also admissible evidence that we could use and place before a court.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: What was found out about Cameron Burgess’s mental state?
JOHN LAYCOCK: According to the psychologist’s report that was tended to the court at the time, he had no mental illness or condition, probably can’t comment too much further than that.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Was there anything significant about this Burgess case?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look all police investigations are virtually quite different but the one thing that struck out with him was that he was operating in such vast distances away from each other: the Central Coast, Albury, Wagga and the Blue Mountains, entrenching himself in with the local fire fighting sort of type community and committing offences of that nature. It was quite unusual. Most arsonists tend to work fairly close in one area.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Why do you think he was moving from area to area?
JOHN LAYCOCK: I don’t really know, I never could find that out. I think he had contacts in all those locations and he entrenched himself in with the local community.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Have you ever had a problem with other members of the volunteer brigades being arsonists?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look occasionally with all large organisations you might have one or two, even a handful of people who fall through the cracks and obviously Burgess is one of those but probably no more than any other group from the community. We’ve found offenders from all walks of life so I don’t see that as particularly unusual or significant.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: How important do you think it is for the bushfire brigades to be vigilant in keeping an eye out for arsonists in their midst?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Very important. We work so closely together, we find that most captains of all the outfits, all brigades, do report anything unusual to us through their own chain of command. Obviously, if they’ve got one of their own out lighting fires, it’s a big risk. It does them damage so they are very supportive of the police and, on quite a few occasions, they have been entrusted and vice versa with sensitive details and they don’t breach security so the probability of that sort of continuing can’t be excluded but it’s small on the scale.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Do you think that the checks are sufficient at the moment: the background checks of people wanting to join volunteer brigades?
JOHN LAYCOCK: Look that’s a question I think for the Rural Fire Commissioner, Mr Koperberg. Whether that would solve all the problems I don’t know. I don’t profess to be an expert. It’s a question of how far you go and what expense and what are the risks involved if you don’t…? There’s the odd one that falls through the crack but whether what you’re going to do is enough to weed them out I don’t know.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: If you could look into your crystal ball – 5, 10 years down the track – paint us a bit of a picture of the likelihood that you’ll be catching more bushfire arsonists.
JOHN LAYCOCK: I think, from what we’ve developed now, is that if you’re going to go out and start lighting fires, the probability of being caught is fairly high. Our forensics, our working with the other agencies, our scientific, our expertise, our skill base, our investigators, the probability of being caught is very high. As the years progress that capacity’s only going to increase and will get better and better. The end result will be that, if you’re going to be an arsonist, you better pack a toothbrush because you’ll be going to gaol.
[Ed: Monday 24th October 2011 was the first hot day for some months in the Blue Mountains and it was a day where winds were forecast to pick up in the afternoon from the west. The bush arsonist must have known this. What were the media reports ahead of this? What language did the media use on Sunday 23rd October to describe the weather forecast?]
.
‘Arson may be behind the Mountains’ second major bushfire outbreak in a month that saw hundreds of schoolchildren and residents evacuated, and damaged seven homes.
The blaze broke out shortly before 2pm on Monday, October 24 at Cliff Drive near Echo Point and forced the evacuation of 450 children from Katoomba High School and 25 residents from 12 nearby homes.
Tourists were also warned to stay away from the area and fears were held at the height of the blaze for landmarks including Katoomba’s Scenic Skyway, Lilianfels and Echoes Hotel, with the Skyway’s terminal scorched by the flames.
“During the blaze, seven homes sustained minor damage, and a garden shed was destroyed,” a police statement said.
Local detectives and Strike Force Tronto officers together with Rural Fire Service investigators are looking into the cause of the fire, with initial inquiries suggesting the fire “may have been deliberately lit”, according to a police statement.
Blue Mountains Crime Manager Inspector Mick Bostock told reporters yesterday (Tuesday) while the fire had “two points of origin”, investigators believed it was lit by the one arsonist. He could not say exactly how. Police were interviewing one witness, an overseas tourist living in Bondi, who reported a fire in the area, he said.
Firefighters worked on Monday night to secure the fire edges and by Tuesday morning it had burned out 20 hectares of bushland and was no longer a threat to property. Fire and Rescue NSW sector commander for the incident, Inspector Kernin Lambert, said he was amazed no homes had been lost, with conditions creating “the perfect storm”.
“On this occasion the timely response and some brilliant firefighting from Fire and Rescue NSW and the Rural Fire Service saved the day,” he told the Gazette. “We are told that fire has not burned through that area for 35 years and the high accumulation of bush . . . the angle of the slope, wind direction, the aspect, it was like the perfect storm in terms of potential for fire disaster.
[‘Blue Mountains bushfire: police investigate arson’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20111025, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/blue-mountains-bushfire-police-investigate-arson-20111025-1mgvj.html]
.
‘A bushfire in NSW’s Blue Mountains, which was believed to be deliberately lit, is now under control after firefighters back-burned overnight. Police are investigating if arson is to blame for a bushfire that is burning in the Blue Mountains for a second day. The blaze, which started about 2pm yesterday, has scorched 19 hectares at Katoomba, west of Sydney, and forced the evacuation of a high school.Detectives from the Blue Mountains Local Area Command and Strike Force Tronto and the Rural Fire Service will investigate the circumstances of the fire burning between Cliff Drive and Katoomba Street.’
.
‘Arson investigators probe Katoomba blaze’
[Source: ‘Arson investigators probe Katoomba blaze’, ABC, 20111025, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-25/arson-investigators-probe-katoomba-blaze/3598740]
.
Detectives specialising in arson cases are heading to the Blue Mountains to investigate a bushfire that damaged seven homes at Katoomba yesterday. Police believe the blaze was deliberately lit near Cliff Drive or Katoomba Street about 2:00pm (AEDT). Officers would like to speak with anyone who saw any suspicious behaviour in the vicinity.
[The following article was initially published as a letter in the local Blue Mountains Gazette (BMG) newspaper on page 4 by this Editor 20081008 under the title ‘RTA Juggernaut‘. It was sparked by reading two separate letters in the paper from Bullaburra residents angry with the RTA and the highway widening process. Copies of those letters are at the end of this article – one by long time Bullaburra resident Viki Wright Rivett; the other by lifetime Bullaburra resident and local historian Una King.]
.
Note: RTA = New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority; GWH = Great Western Highway
Bullaburra’s rural amenity
Looking east along Great Western Highway towards Railway Station (left)
(Photo by Editor 20110115, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
Decades of complacency and naivety, or do residents of bucolic Bullaburra simply deserve rights to quiet enjoyment and their buena vista? The RTA highway juggernaut is at the door. It won’t just ‘bisect’ the community [‘Anger at RTA‘ BMG 1-10-08]; it will permanently segregate it, raze its rural amenity and degrade it into a noisy truck side stop. Bullaburra is set to receive the same utility vision imposed on Blaxland and so many other Mountains communities.
Bullaburra looking east along Great Western Highway towards Noble Street (far centre)
(Photo by Editor 20110115, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
I too attended the August township meeting at Bullaburra’s Progress Association hall, not as a Bullaburra resident, nonetheless as a Mountains resident. At the packed meeting, Bullaburrans unanimously endorsed an alternative plan asking the RTA to accommodate local linkages across what will become another four-lane barrier dividing a local community. Personal experience in dealing with the RTA at Leura, Medlow Bath and Katoomba affirms it doesn’t listen or care. It has just plundered the rare 1820s convict road at Leura, hardly pausing its schedule.
Bullaburra: “Blue Skies” Village – reads the sign (Aboriginal translation)
Western approach to Bullaburra along the Great Western Highway
(Photo by Editor 20110115, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
The RTA’s massive budget is only limited by political will. It stands to be key recipient of the new Building Australia Fund of $22,000,000,000 then claims it can’t afford community bridges. Be clear, the RTA’s mandate for ‘progress’ is to build more expressways. Driven by road lobbyists, the RTA is extending greater Sydney’s swelling suburbia like Roman legions extended empire.
‘Few understand how much transport influences land use patterns. Transport leads land use. Once an expressway or railway is built, it is easy to change the zoning and development laws to increase the population along the corridor.’ [Then NSW Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor, SMH 29-9-08, p11].
RTA performance is measured by it maximising road ‘ride quality’ and minimising ‘travel times.’ The RTA juggernaut will remain unstoppable so long as local townships rely upon single-handed last ditch battles. Our freshly elected Mountains councillors should stand up for the people of Bullaburra.
This is what awaits Bullaburra – destruction of rural amenity
Clearfelled mature native trees at Katoomba to make way for a wider faster trucking expressway
Same project, different section.
(Photo by Editor 20090501, free in public domain)
.
More of what awaits Bullaburra – a trucking expressway amenity!
Eastern approach to Wentworth Falls near Rest Easy Motel (off photo to right).
(Photo by Editor 20110115, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge).
.
.
Following this letter in the weekly local paper, the next week (20081015) the Chairman of the Bullaburra Township Committee, Mr Will Silk, responded as follows:
.
‘Missed Target’
letter by Will Silk in BMG 20081015
.
‘I really don’t know where the author (BMG 08.Oct.2008) is coming from, but he seems to have parachuted into a campaign in the dark and has missed the landing zone.
Steven, a word, to you and other latecomers who are just now arriving from above to hitch themselves to the Bullaburra bandwagon – take the time to find out more about us partisans and the grounds on which we have to work.
At the recent Bullaburra Town Meeting, if you weren’t so blinkered by your condescending stereotyping of a “bucolic Bullaburra”, with its residents slumbering in selfish “complacency and naivety”, you might have seen, heard and, possibly, learned some things of interest to residents’ right activists, environmentalists and radical democrats.
You correctly observed a packed meeting of Bullaburra residents as they unanimously (re-)endorsed the Bullaburra Township Committee’s (BTC) plan to manage the way in which the GWH goes through Bullaburra, and condemned the RTA’s plan.
But, hey, Steven! Where did the BTC Plan come from? It came from 18 years’ proactive work by Bullaburra residents and their organisations. We saw the RTA “juggernaut” coming a long time ago, and instead of just whingeing, we developed our own plan before the RTA did, and we united behind it!
You failed to see that at the meeting, the BTC Plan (with its three integral foundations of pedestrian trian bridge), service road and North-South Bullaburra road-rail bridge) has the unanimous support of all the community organisations in Bullaburra. You also failed to hear all of the now elected ward councillors give our plan their support. And moreover, you didn’t see the now mayor, Adam Searle, and from the Liberal side, Chris van der Kley both, literally “stand up”, together and not for the first time, to show their support.
Far from being naive and complacent, Bullaburra, and the BTC have already put in the hard yards of “politically correct” struggle; delegations, submissions, lobbying. What you failed to see at the meeting was a community gearing up, giving its representatives a very clear mandate, for the next stage in its struggle for a renewed, people and environmentally-friendly village.
We are not “at a last ditch”. But we are about to go to the barricades. We encourage you and all Blue Mountaineers who care about creating such townships to join us if you wish. But leave the mocking paternalism behind. Seeing the RTA as an “instoppable Juggernaut” is defeatist. It is a sort of jaded fatalism that is itself an impotent form of complacency.’
~ Will Silk, President of the Bullaburra Township Committee.
.
.
Harsh defensive words from Mr Silk.
I chose not to reply to Will Silk’s above letter in the local paper, because to have done so would have only detracted Bullaburra residents from their united focus behind Will Silk to deal with the RTA. The aim of my letter had merely been to awaken fence sitting residents to the realisation of the force and power they were dealing with at the RTA. I had witnessed similar David v Goliath community campaigns along the highway, most notably at adjacent Lawson, each village/town community singularly convinced that their case was special and naively campaigning in isolation against the legal might and finances of the RTA.
So I was happy to withdraw my involvement at the time to avoid potential conflict, yet my protest campaign in the local paper broadly against the Trucking Expressway continued through into 2010.
What Mr Silk didn’t realise was that I had been actively involved in previous community campaigns concerning the RTA highway widening stretching back to 2001 when I first arrived in the Blue Mountains. Previous highway campaigns have included Shell Corner (2001-02), Soldiers Pinch (2001-02), Lawson (2003-09), Leura section 1 (2004-05), Medlow Bath (2005 ), Leura section 2 (2006-08), Katoomba (2006-09), Mount Victoria bypass (2006-08) and Bells Line of Road (2005-07).
What Mr Silk also didn’t realise was that at the time I was contracting as a management accountant with the RTA, with some insight into the mechanisations, agendas and management culture of this very much political organisation. What Mr Silk also didn’t realise was that I had researched the history of Bullburra and learnt about the RTA plans for the highway widening through the town.
The RTA plans are set to divide Bullaburra by a faster four-laned expressway, greatly restricting local access and offering very few design concessions to local residents.
.
.
I didn’t have to wait long for the optimistic Bullaburra community sentiments to sour about the likely success of the BTC’s alternative highway design.
The above letter in the local paper by Mr Silk a Chairman of the Bullaburra Township Committee, saw the following week a media release by the Bullaburra Township Committee, headed up with a photo including Will Silk.
.
‘Bullaburra joins highway battle‘
by Michael Cleggett (journalist), BMG 20081022, p3.
.
‘The RTA’s highway-widening roadshow continues to attract jeers wherever it arrives, and this time it’s Bullaburra residents voicing anger at plans for their stretch of tarmac.
Members of the Bullaburra Township Committee (BTC) are furious their own designs for the upgrade have seemingly been ignored.
BTC president Will Silk is concerned the RTA has not fully accounted for the effect of any works on the village and its people.
After years of campaigning to different levels of government and departments, residents were dismayed by the RTA proposal when it was made public earlier this year.
“We went in to see them in the first week of June this year and not to our surprise, but to our disgust, we found that they didn’t even know about our plan, they hadn’t taken it into consideration,” Mr Silk said.
In anticipation of the highway upgrade the community has been looking into the issue for more than 20 years. The three pillars of the BTC designs are a road bridge connecting north and south Bullaburra, a comprehensive service road on the southern side running parallel to the highway and a pedestrian bridge. None of these form part of the RTA’s proposal.
Mr Silk said the BTC’s vision presents a much better opportunity to create “a modern 21st century village with the unavoidable highway through the middle of it”.
The service road is intended to allow residents to traverse the town without having to make a difficult turn onto the highway while the bridges would avoid permanently dividing the town as well as providing easier emergency vehicle access. This stage of work will expand the highway to two lanes in each direction from Noble Street to 600 metres west of Genevieve Road.
Outside of the widening, the main features of the RTA plans involve relocating the commuter car park to the southern side of the highway, moving the pedestrian crossing lights, an access road for some properties between Genevieve Road and Noble Street and a number of other changes to street access and bus stops.
Member for Blue Mountains Phil Koperberg has expressed a willingness to further examine the issue.
“(The BTC) proposal for a link bridge between north and south of the Great Western Highway obviously has merit,” he said. “However, whether or not it is practical, feasible or constructable I’ll take advice from the RTA.”
An RTA pamphlet delivered to residents suggests that advice will be bad news. It describes a comprehensive access road and a pedestrian overbridge as unfeasible.
A spokesperson for the RTA said an information session earlier this month was well attended with “some worthwhile suggestions . . . put forward, which will be investigated”.
A second information session will be held by the RTA from 10am-1pm at Lawson Bowling Club this Saturday, October 25.’
.
.
This article by the Bullaburra Township Committee was then followed up by Bullaburra resident Patrick Tatam, who clearly had a stronger interpretation of how discussions between locals and the Roads and Traffic Association were proceeding.
.
‘RTA Bullaburra fiasco’
by Patrick Tatam, Bullaburra (letter in BMG 20081029, p4)
.
‘Regarding the obstructionist, bullying attitude of the RTA towards the Bullaburra Township Committee (BTC), attacking the BTC’s proposed alternativeplan for the GWH rod widening through Bullaburra, here’s my take on what locals are saying:
The major political parties are basically inept, unable to listen to constituents and consumed with retaining/grasping power
Phil Koperberg (then local Labor MP) has no effectively influential power, says anything to avoid an issue, is “a bit of a show pony”, and has furthered his career utilising the ‘who you know, not what you know’ approach
The RTA is seen as a mob of bureaucratic bullies, are even more incompetent than their political masters (the Hazelbrook railway bridge fiasco is common knowledge), and are responsible/answerable solely to the faceless bosses located deeply within the termite mound of RTA headquarters.
RTA representatives at community meetings are aggressive, non-consultative, driven only by their own preferred agendas, ill-prepared, and are the antithesis of ‘public servants’
Exiting either Boronia or Genevieve Road is currently dangerous, and will become definitely more so with the planned RTA ‘seagull’ intersection, increased speed restrictions (from 70kph to 80kph) and higher traffic volumes (particularly those larger faster trucks).
The BTC’s plan is a far better solution for the Bullaburra area than the ‘crash through or crash anyway’ RTA proposal; it’s a plan that addresses the needs of the people who live here, not the needs of a termite from a city office, and incorporates beneficial infrastructurec, not just ‘bloody minded’ bitumen.
.
Elected government members, and RTA personnel, should realise that they are our representatives, and that locals are becoming more politically astute, voting more for independents, if only to make our representatives more representative. Those bullies that remain, hiding behind the skirts of party machinery, should recall the destiny of the dinosaur. Or just move to the last bastions of ‘Bullyville’: Zimbabwe, Myanmar, etc.
~Patrick Tatam, Bullaburra.
.
.
Editor’s Campaign to Save Bullaburra’s 300+ year old Angophora tree from the RTA
.
Bullaburra’s Angophora – on RTA’s death row .
Listed on Blue Mountains Council’s Significant Tree Register
Registered Significant Tree #: 29
Botanical Name: Angophora costata
Common Name: Smooth Barked Apple, Red Gum
Date Registered: 17th July 1985, adopted 21st June 1988
Location: Great Western Highway, Bullaburra, Opp. Lot 173, DP13407.
Campaign article in Blue Mountains Gazette 20081203, p19..
This followed a quarter page campaign article published in this newpaper on 20081105 costing this Editor $460.
(Click image to enlarge)
A native Scribbly Gum of Faulconbridge, Blue Mountains, Australia
…perhaps over 200 years old, healthy and in its natural setting.
(Photo by Editor 20111226, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
.…but simply because land developers want to destroy the bush for selfish housing, they legally claim the tree is ‘potentially dangerous’
It seems the New South Wales Court Commissioner has sympathised and condemned the tree to a chainsaw death.
(Photo by Editor 20111226, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
Court Presumptuous?
.
The New South Wales Land (before) Environment Court has demonised and stigmatised this native Eucalypt tree as a “hybrid” (i.e. as a ‘half cast’ in human terms). The Acting Commissioner has ruled a death warrant upon this native old growth Eucalypt in its natural bushland setting on the following three bases:
..
Basis #1. Blue Mountains ‘Significant Tree’ protection ignores claims of a tree being somehow dangerous (however contrived, false and self-servingly malicious the rationale)
.
“While the provisions of (Blue Mountains Council’s) Development Control Plan (DCP) 9 must be considered as a fundamental element in the decision process…it does not necessarily follow that the tree should be retained under any circumstances.
“DCP 9 is silent on how to address trees that are potentially dangerous or unhealthy although Clause 6 provides the opportunity to “cut down”… any tree on the Register of Significant Trees” but with the consent of Council.”
(Ed: Blue Mountains Council had unanimously rejected the development application – so the ‘acting’ Commissioner is presuming any real opportunity and by raising such weak argument is siding with the developer).
.
Basis #2. The ‘acting’ Commissioner rejects the tree’s scenic quality instantly without due consideration and with a presumed fear of trees
.
“Accepting that the Hybrid adds to the scenic quality of the site and the surrounding area, this benefit needs to be balanced against the likely longevity of the tree and its health. (Ed: The Court has no grounds for estimating the longevity of this tree, and seems to be surmising on the basis of personal prejudice).
In this case, I have little trouble in concluding that the balance falls in favour of the removal of the tree . The conclusions of the two tomograph (xray) tests and the evidence of Dr McDonald and Mr James, and supported by the council officer, leave little doubt as to the appropriate outcome.
(Ed: Tomograph tests and evidence withheld in Court decision, so how do we know the tree is unhealthy?)
“I do not accept that the retention of the tree, irrespective of the scenic quality links to the area, should be preferred when there is a serious and legitimate question over the safety of the tree. (Ed: The “serious and legitimate question over the safety of the tree” is unsubstantiated and appears presumptive).
“In my view, the overwhelming expert and scientific evidence clearly suggests that the tree is dangerous and presents an unsafe situation for future ocupants of the site.”
(Ed: ‘Overwhelming‘ from what independent qualified and scientifically relevant source and where is the report? The ‘acting‘ Commissioner’s presumption of ‘future occupants of the site‘ suggests a high probability of judicial bias).
.
Basis #3. Tree canopies are inconsistent with housing safety
.
“Even if a dwelling is constructed outside of the area covered by the tree canopy, I am not satisfied that (it) sufficiently overcomes the potential danger from the tree. It would be clearly impractical to fence off the area under the canopy, given the limited area remaining for a dwelling on the site and the need to provide ancillary matters such as private open space and building setbacks.” (Ed: The Court is prejudging that the developer proposal for dwellings (x2) and proposed private open space and building setbacks have precedent values over the natural values of pre-existicng native bushland including a Council-protected significant mature native tree, native vegetation and bushrock).
“The suggestion by Ms Hobley that a dwelling could be located underneath the (tree) canopy is misconceived, given the weight of evidence for branch failure and which is supported by the obvious example where an existing branch has failed and only remains because it is held up by another tree on the site. I am not satisfied that Ms Hobley has given proper consideration to the potential for injury in her assessment of the tree.”
.
(Ed: The ‘acting’ Commissioner conveys an preconceived view that trees are dangerous. Details of “an existing branch” failing are not available in the Court’s decision.)
.
A native Eucalypt, condemned as a ‘hybrid’
by those who themselves are but hybrid descendants of colonists
because human invasion is enshrined in law as having a superior value than existing native old growth.
(Photo by Editor 20111226, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
.
The Habitat Advocate is pleased to support the efforts of local people in Faulconbridge trying to save this grand native tree from being killed. For further information visit: ^http://savethetree.org/
.
.
‘Native Cleansing’
.
Clearing native trees for human development is a value judgment of convenience. Philosophically native tree cleansing is no different to ethic cleansing of one human ethic group of another.
Native forest deforestation (ethnic cleansing)– at record levels across New South Wales
.
‘Ethnic Cleansing’ is a process in which advancing army of one ethnic group expels civilians of other ethnic groups from towns and villages it conquers in order to create ethnically pure enclaves for members of their ethnic group.
‘Serbian military commander in Bosnia, a war criminal sought by the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Ratko Mladic, sometimes issued specific orders to his subordinates to shell a particular village more than others, because there is less Serbs and more Muslims living there. Often, refugees of one ethnic group previously “cleansed” from their homes by other ethnic group are made to live in freshly “cleansed” territory of that other ethnic group.’
‘It’s not just humans who have rights, all beings do. The right not to be polluted is a right that belongs to us as well as to the Earth, to the air we breathe and to future generations. There are other rights which apply to us all, the problem is that they are not yet recognised internationally. But this is rapidly changing and you can find more information about the campaigns and progress of this fast developing arena of humanitarian and environmental law, called Earth Law.’
Noisy by day, nightmarish by night: Mt Victoria residents (Blue Mountains) near this 24-hour Caltex service station are being disturbed round-the-clock by truck drivers parking on their doorstops.
[Source: Blue Mountains Gazette, 20040924]
.
As alternating Labor and Liberal governments ignore rail investment across Australia and instead encourage and invest hundreds of million of our taxes in bigger roads for truck freight, regional highways are being transformed into noisy and dangerous trucking expressways.
Year on year, the regional Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains for instance, has seen a steady increase in the number, size and frequency of trucks using it for long-distance linehaul. Produce, fuel, sand, soil, cement, grain, steel, concrete pipes, shipping containers are getting carted by road, some from as far away as Darwin and Perth, over the highway that runs through Blue Mountains towns and villages. There are many different speed zones to ensure the safety of local road users. All of these freight types could be carted by rail, which for the most part runs alongside the highway, but is mostly only used by passenger trains. The only commodity still banned is uranium but with federal Labor recently allowing uranium sales to India to resume, is it only matter of time before radioactive uranium is carted through Blue Mountains towns and villages?
There are commuters, school zones, buses, cyclists, pedestrian crossings and increasingly 19 metre B-double trucks hurtling along the same highway driven by ‘trip-rate’ pay incentives. Tail-gating is an all too frequently noted dangerous habit of many of these truck drivers, yet the NRMA suggests that “you try not to let the size of the vehicle intimidate you“. (Karen Fittall, NRMA’s ‘Open Road’ magazine, September/October 2005, ^http://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/mynrma/hs.xsl/heavy_going.htm).
.
Trucks behaving badly Pacific Highway (and Great Western Highway)
.
.
Somehow the Transport Workers Union has allowed the hourly rate to go out the window in favour of the employer’s convenient fixed cost ‘trip rate’. So to a truck driver it’s more trips for more money based on commercial incentive arrangements. This incentive structure has become the motivation driving faster trucks and therefore more dangerous trucks to push and exceed speed limits. Across the Blue Mountains, both Great Western Highway and Bell Line of Road, highway signposted speed limits are systemically unenforced.
.
Where’s the speed governor? Where are the road patrols?
.
.
At the time of Bob Debus MP as NSW Labor Member for Blue Mountains (1981 – 1988, then again 1995 – 2007), then federal Labor member for Macquarie (2007 – 2009), the once prohibited B-double trucks surreptitiously started using the Great Western Highway. How was this allowed? Now 19 metre B-doubles are at such frequency along the highway as to be standard, but there has been no local community consultation nor local community approval. It has been an undemocratic impost. What is stopping 26 metre B-doubles creeping in?
.
Exhaust Brake Noise is Rife!
.
Many trucks drivers on the highway apply their noisy engine brakes (engine compression braking) because they are told it saves on the cost of brake pads. Engine brakes in heavy vehicles are auxiliary brakes installed as important backup safety braking to reduce the load on service brakes on a steep descent. But many truck drivers have then engaged automatically so they kick in as soon as the driver takes his foot of the accelerator pedal. (This Editor holds a Class ‘HC’ Heavy Vehicle Drivers Licence, so is aware of this lazy habit).
Many truck engine brakes are noisy and the ‘bark’ characteristic of the noise reverberates considerably at night. Truck drivers selfishly use these even as they drive through Blue Mountains towns and villages. So 24 hours a day, often in the wee small hours, these exhaust brakes can be heard reverberating for miles around, keeping many Blue Mountains residents awake.
The police do nothing – they say it’s not their job. The Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) does nothing, except put up tokenistic signs – ‘Trucks – limit engine braking‘, which is flatly ignored and not enforced. The Blue Mountains Council does nothing – it say it’s not it’s job, even though it accepts operating as an agency for the RTA at Katoomba.
Possibly the most ignored sign on a highway
One sign means the RTA can avoid the cost of enforcement
while pretending to and meet its local government development guidelines
– on paper.
.
So truck owners apparently save on the cost of renewing their brakes, but selfishly at the expense of Blue Mountains residents trying to get a good night’s sleep. This editor lives a kilometre from the highway yet almost nightly hears some lousy trucker’s exhaust brakes as it moans up to the red lights outside Council chambers. Selfish bastards they are! I bet there’s been complaints, but typically none of these agencies has done squat about it.
.
Dodgy Truck Rest Area
.
Big linehaul trucks are destroying the Blue Mountains. Not only by their noise and dangerous speeds, but intimidating tail-gating to keep schedule and parking day and night outside residents homes.
At Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains, the RTA and Blue Mountains Council approved of 24-hour Caltex Service Station and allowing truck drivers to use the adjacent highway shoulder to park and sleep. The shoulder was even widened to accommodate and encourage its use as a dodgy heavy vehicle rest area.
Since December 2003, Caltex at Mount Victoria was somehow allowed to become a round-the-clock operation with drivers of passing trucks, semi-trailers and B-doubles using the road shoulders to park their vehicles, often directly in front of residents’ front doors.
Local residents have complained to their members of parliament about the constant truck noise, of truck drivers leaving their rubbish by the side of the road and some even using front yards as a toilet – urinating and defecating!
In 2004, Liberal MP Duncan Gay, then Shadow Roads Minister, met with local community representatives at Mount Victoria, confirming that:
.
“The RTA, who are responsible for fatigue management need to provide proper rest points”
.
Now in 2011, with the Liberal Coalition in power, still nothing has been done. With speed being the main cause of at least half the recorded crashes, and the NRMA confirming a need for increased enforcement of heavy vehicle speed limits, Duncan Gay back in 2004 also advocated the installation of two new speed cameras ‘to convince motorists to take more care.’ Nup, not yet done either!
Then NSW Liberal Party Shadow Minster Duncan Gay (centre)
meeting Blue Mountains community representatives at Mount Victoria in 2004.
All care and no responsibility.
(Source: Blue Mountains Gazette)
.
The RTA, while headlong enthusiastic about channelling hundreds of millions into capital works widening sections of the highway, highway maintenance and traffic enforcement has always been the RTA’s unsexy Cinderella. Fatigue is one of the biggest causes of crashes for heavy vehicle drivers and the RTA is the delegated authority responsible for overseeing heavy vehicle driver fatigue management on New South Wales roads. This necessarily includes providing for the necessary rest facilities.
Suitable rest areas are important for heavy vehicle drivers to take long and short rest breaks, use amenities and check loads and vehicles. Heavy vehicle drivers must conform to fatigue management legislation that specifies strict resting requirements. In order to fulfil these requirements they require suitable rest area facilities that are regularly spaced along key freight routes. (Source: ^http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/heavyvehicles/safety/hvfatigue/index.html)
.
RTA reneging on its duty to provide suitable Rest Areas
On 29th September 2008, Australia’s National Transport Commission (NTC) introduced new Heavy Vehicle Driver Fatigue laws national-wide. This came about as a consequence of many crashes involving heavy vehicles on designated national freight routes and fatigue identified as a key cause. The Audit of Rest Areas against National Guidelines (Austroads 2006) had found that many rest areas on freight routes across Australia (many in NSW) were deficient in being suitable to provide for appropriate rest breaks to address driver fatigue. One of the key freight routes is Great Western Highway /Mitchell Highway (Nepean River to Dubbo).
The NTC Guidelines for Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas includes the following principles:
Sites generally at no more than 100km intervals. Geographical and other physical constraints may require a range between 80 and 120km with the maximum limit generally being 120km.
Sites are to be provided on both sides of the road on those parts of the network that have high levels of demand, while those with lower levels of demand will not require provision on both sides of the road.
Sites are to be well signposted for heavy vehicle drivers and have suitable access for ingress and egress.
Sites are to have designated hard stand parking for heavy vehicles and an appropriate number of parking spaces dependent on demand.
Sites are to meet the basic needs of heavy vehicle drivers including provision of sealed pavements particularly for ingress and egress lanes/ramps, at least one toilet on each site, shade, shelter, rubbish bins and tables and chairs.
The RTA restated these two years later in its public document ‘RTA Strategy for Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas on Key Rural Freight Routes in NSW, January 2010‘.
A RTA model heavy vehicle rest area
‘Station creek’ rest area north of Karuah, Pacific Highway, NSW
.
A RTA dodgy heavy vehicle rest area
‘Mount Victoria’ outside resident properties #45-47, #49, #51, #143, #147, #151.
.
RTA dodgy (unconscionable) heavy vehicle rest area in front of residents’ homes
.
The RTA is obligated to provide for a Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas along the Great Western Highway accessible from each side of the highway at the intervals and with minimum standard of facilities as prescribed under the 2008 NTC Guidelines. Similarly, heavy vehicle drivers are required to have breaks at the frequencies, duration and under such conditions as prescribed under the 2008 Heavy Vehicle Driver Fatigue laws, basically to ensure that they ‘fit for duty’ and not too tired to drive safely. In NSW this is law under the Road Transport (General) Regulation 2005, which in relation to trucks applies to trucks with a Gross Vehicle Mass of 12 tonnes. Under the regulation, Basic Fatigue Management, starts with a solo driver required to have a 15 minute ‘stationary rest‘ after no more than 6 hours and 15 minutes at work, driving or otherwise. Longer work shifts have increasing rest break requirements. ‘Stationary rest‘ is defined as rest time that the driver spends out of the heavy vehicle or in an approved sleeper berth of a stationary regulated heavy vehicle.
.
However, along the Great Western Highway, which the RTA deems to be a ‘key rural freight route‘, the entire route of 200 km between outer Sydney (Penrith) and Orange provides no current rest area facilities, either westbound or eastbound that meet the 2008 NTC Guidelines. There should be two sites at no more than 100km apart, and on both sides of the highway, not just one side, with suitable access for ingress and egress. The sites should have stand parking for heavy vehicles and an appropriate number of parking spaces dependent on demand, as well as offering drivers a toilet, shade, shelter, rubbish bins and tables and chairs.
But the RTA simply doesn’t care. The RTA is prepared to ignore the problem of fatigue, to configure exemptions to avoid legalities and otherwise spend millions on the more politically sexy capital works upgrades. Three years after the NTC Guidelines, and many crashes later (involving heavy vehicles), the RTA has spent hundred of millions widening the Great Western Highway into a trucking expressway for bigger and more trucks to use, but has provided no facilities to address heavy vehicle driver fatigue. So the RTA is telling truck drivers to take proper breaks, but providing them with stuff all places to properly have a break. The RTA is negligent. It is also sly at claiming private enterprise facilities as its delivery of rest areas.
So the RTA is not just negligent. It is unethical.
No heavy vehicle facilities provide by the RTA for 200 km between Penrith and Orange
.
Along the Great Western Highway freight route between Penrith and Orange, a distance of over 200 km, the RTA provides no dedicated rest areas for heavy vehicles to the NTC Guidelines. The only RTA-built rest area is an unshaded paved vehicle check area just west of Faulconbridge with no facilities except two rubbish bins.
Only private enterprises are providing any form of adequate rest facility eastbound between Orange and Penrith that is accessible by heavy vehicles – the BP Service Station at Mount Lambie and the Caltex Service Station at Mount Victoria, but neither provide space for a heavy vehicle to park so the driver can sleep. The only heavy vehicle rest facility between westbound between Penrith and Orange is the Shell Service Station at Yetholm where there is ample off road parking, a roadside restaurant, toilets and an adjoining motor inn, but this is a commercial operation, not one provided by the RTA.
The RTA is thus contributory in culpability for heavy vehicle crashes due to driver fatigue along the Great Western Highway.
The RTA map below (which can be viewed full size by the link provided) shows the Great Western Highway from Penrith to Bathurst, with only two rest stops (‘Driver Reviver‘ sites in yellow) – one at Glenbrook (westbound only), and one at Faulconbridge (eastbound only). Neither are any more than roadside parking areas without facilities – big of the RTA!
RTA’s key rural freight route supposed ‘rest area’
for Heavy Vehicles at Faulconbridge – westbound access only.
(Photo by Editor 20111019, free in public domain)
No toilets
No shade
No shelter
No tables
Two bins, but who empties them and how often?
Not signposted as ‘Rest Area’ but as ‘Vehicle Checking Area’ I wonder why? (see next zoom photo)
.
RTA key rural freight route truck stop Faulconbridge
Not signposted as ‘Rest Area‘ but as ‘Vehicle Checking Area‘
.
Back to the January 2010 ‘RTA Strategy for Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas on Key Rural Freight Routes in NSW’, the RTA lists the facilities available or not available for heavy vehicle drivers along the Great Western Highway between Penrith and Orange in two tables – one Westbound (p.19), one Eastbound (p.20).
‘Victoria Pass Parking Area‘ is nothing but a widened road shoulder outside the Caltex Service Station at Mount Victoria outside residents homes. There is no shade or shelter. The Caltex Service Station provides for refuelling/vehicle inspection, but no place for drivers to sleep in the vehicles.
At the time of writing, there are no current facilities at River Lett Hill – the statement of there being ‘a rest area…on both sides of the road including a toilet‘ is false and misleading.
At the time of writing, the Raglan Service Centre (Shell) is currently closed and is under construction as a BP service station. It is to be a private facility, not provided by the RTA.
RTA: “No existing rest area meets or can be upgraded to meet the required 10 parking spaces in one site in this section (due to existing site constraints). The recommendation is for heavy vehicles to utilise and upgrade existing rest areas, in the interim, with the RTA investigating the potential, to construct in the long term, a major rest area as part of the Great Western Highway upgrade – Mount Victoria to Lithgow project.”
Ed: Given this will cost about $1 billion, it is unlikely to be funded or built any time soon, and so is a poor excuse by the RTA for doing nothing.
.
Eastbound (north side of the highway)
.
(Click to enlarge table)
.
There is no heavy vehicle facility between Orange and Bathurst. The RTA’s mention of upgrading the Larra Lee rest area is a proposal only, just to fill in space in the table to mask its failure to provide a facility.
‘Raglan Service Centre’
At the time of writing the ‘Raglan Service Centre is closed. It was a Shell Service Station for heavy vehicles. It is currently under construction as a BP Service Station, but it is not a facilty provided by the RTA. The RTA’s branding of this facility as a ‘Raglan Service Centre’ is deceptive and misleading.
.
Caltex Service Station at Mount Victoria
The only facility that the RTA mentions is “Parking bay east of Mount Victoria (existing). Food, toilet, shade, shelter provided at adjacent service station“.
This false and misleading. The facilities are not that of the RTA. The only service offered by the Caltex Service Station for heavy vehicles is refueling, vehicle inspection, a roadside cafe and toilet. There is no shade or shelter either on the Caltex site or along the road shoulders. The “parking bay” is the road shoulder. What a deceptive fabrication!
.
RTA’s excuse for perpetuating its Dodgy Rest Area at Mount Victoria
.
Standard Politic Tactic #1: Blame lack of Federal Government – will sit well with NSW Roads and Transport Minister of the day
.
RTA:
‘Implementation of the RTA’s Strategy for Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas on Key Rural Freight Routes in NSW is largely dependent on the availability of funding from the Federal Government.
The Federal Government’s 2008/09 Budget outlined that the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government would provide $70 million across Australia over four years to fund a range of heavy vehicle safety initiatives. This funding is being allocated under the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program (HVSPP) in two rounds with Round 1 covering 2008/09 – 2009/10 (complete) and Round 2 covering 2010/11 and 2011/12 (current). Under the HVSPP Guidelines a key consideration in allocating the funding is the extent to which state and territory governments commit to match the Federal Government’s funding contribution.
As part of Round 1 of the HVSPP, on 8 May 2009 the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and the then State Minister for Roads announced $16M (50% Federal and 50% State) for NSW. Of this, $15M is currently being spent on 6 new rest areas and 22 rest area upgrades with the balance on bridge assessments for higher masses. In Round 1, NSW received 26.6% of $30 million available.
In applying the principles set in the RTA’s Guidelines for Provision of Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas a summary of needs across key rural freight routes in NSW is outlined in Table 2. Currently, on these routes 101 rest areas qualify as major heavy vehicle rest areas and 76 sites have been identified for enhancement. A total of 61 existing rest areas have been identified for upgrade to qualify as a major heavy vehicle rest area and 15 sites identified for new heavy vehicle rest areas. The strategic cost ($2009) to undertake required works that are not anticipated to be delivered as part of a major infrastructure proposal is estimated at around $50 to 60 million.
Delivery of works at all 76 identified sites is significantly higher than this strategic estimate.’
.
So what is the RTA’s ultimate excuse:
‘The RTA investigating the potential, in the long term, for a major rest area as part of the Great Western Highway upgrade – Mount Victoria to Lithgow.‘.(Ed: Given the $1 billion pre-blowout estimate, the RTA can focus on its more sexy capital works highway upgrades)..
Meanwhile, back at sleepless Mount Victoria, the Blue Mountains Council was told that the real estate profession had refused to place a valuation on the homes because of the problem and that the homes had been ‘effectively rendered worthless‘.
.
[Source: ‘Mt Vic’s truck dilemma’, by Len Ashworth, Lithgow Mercury, Tuesday 20081125]
No chance!
A B-Double crosses the wrong side of the Hume Highway
and slams head-on into a car killing all three occupants
A speeding semi ploughs into the front yard of a home in Rosanna,
in eastern Melbourne on 21st September 2010
Destruction in progress yesterday at Boddington Hill, east of Wentworth Falls
Great Western Highway Blue Mountains
(Photo by Editor 20120201, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)
Eleven-year-old boy killed when a B-double crashes through his bedroom
Anyone living within 100 metres of a highway has got cause for concern
Truck Roll Over at the intersection of Burrendong Way & The Northern Distributor
Orange, Central NSW, 20100629
[Source: ‘Orange truck rollover’ by Steve Smith, Rural Fire Service, Canobolas, ^http://www.canobolas.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=131107]
Flames … scenes from a fatal crash between a B double truck and a car on the Pacific Highway south of Macksville.
(Photo by Frank Redward)
The overturned B-Double truck 2km south on the Boorowa Road
