..the evening news media dramatises a forthcoming government declaration of a‘Total Fire Ban’. Next day yep, dry and hot, then early afternoon wind picks up. Yep, having mapped target, and with no-one around, opportunity to be ‘Bushfire Hero’…
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7th Feb 2009, 1:30pm – a pine plantation near Churchill, West Gippsland:
Of the thousands of bushfires that burn Australia’s natural landscape each year, humans cause the vast majority, with somewhere around half of these being deliberately lit, that is, not by accident.
Bush Arson is a serious and heinous crime now systemic in bushfire-prone Australia, California and southern forested regions of Europe. It is committed usually by misfit serial offenders, yet despite the statistics, across all states in Australia from Tasmania to the Top End, the crime remains largely given lip service by governments.
Researchers at the Australian Institute of Criminology have assessed that there are many reasons why people light fires. While some want to relieve boredom by creating havoc and excitement, other arsonists crave recognition or attention. Some light fires out of anger or protest while others believe they are being altruistic by clearing what they see as dangerous fuel-loads. Sometimes there are multiple motives.
People who light fires for excitement will often stay around after the fire to view their handiwork, which suggests that fire crews should look around and talk to the people who are there watching. Knowing that some people light fires just so they can treated as a hero if they report the fire or put it out is also useful, especially for fire services screening new members.
Some of those people who light those fires do become members of fire services, and this needs to be a consideration in the firefighting recruitment process.
The 2009 Victorian Bushfires, collectively branded by the media as ‘Black Saturday’, involved far many more bushfires that the ones that ignited and reported by the media on Saturday 7th February 2009.
‘The number of fires that had not been extinguished rose from seven on New Year’s Day to 29 on 14 January. Then it doubled to 58 by 25 January and continued to steadily increase to 125 in the week before 7 February. By this time firefighting resources had been committed for a fortnight responding to new fires and attending to fires already contained or controlled.’
[Source: ‘The Number of Fires’ in Overview, Part One: ‘The January-February 2009 Fires’, Vol I: ‘The Fires and the Fire-Related Deaths’ p.4 citing the Department of Sustainability and Environment – Annual Report 2009 (TEN.201.001.0001) at 0047, in Final Report, July 2010, Vol. 1, p.20, by 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, State Government of Victoria ]
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According to the Victoria Country Fire Authority, of the fires that were not readily contained on or before 7 February, 14 of those 47 became ‘major fires’. On 7th February alone however, the CFA indicated there were a total of 1386 incidents reported on 7 February — 592 grass and bushfires, 263 structure fires and 156 reported incidents that were false alarms.
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[Ed: Clearly the bushfire conditions were extreme (beyond the usual ‘Total Fire Ban’ severity), the number and distribution of bushfires were considerable and emergency resources were overwhelmed. So for bush arson to be committed on such a declared day was beyond arson; it was ‘pyroterrorism’. But the crime does not yet feature in the Crimes Act. It needs to be. The penalty needs to be equated to that which would be imposed upon a terrorist attempting or actually causing mass murder. It is past time that Australia’s lackadaisical and euphemistic term ‘fire bug‘ is cast to history. We owe this to the memory and respect of 173 people lost. What is significant is that of the 173 who died, most were due to either arson or powerline spark – both human caused].
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The bushfires associated with Black Saturday that were selected to be investigated by the Victorian Royal Commission were on the basis of fires having caused the death of the 173 people and/or where significant damage had occurred.
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2009 Bushfires investigated by the Royal Commission
The investigated bushfires numbered twelve and they were:
Kilmore East Bushfire
Murrindindi Bushfire
Churchill Bushfire
Delburn Bushfire
Bunyip Bushfire
Narre Warren Bushfire
Beechworth-Mudgegonga Bushfire
Bendigo Bushfire
Redesdale Bushfire
Coleraine Bushfire
Horsham Bushfire
Pomborneit–Weerite Bushfire
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[Ed: NOTE: We include the suffix ‘bushfire’ above, unlike the Royal Commission in its literature which abbreviates ‘bushfire’ just to ‘fire’, or even drops the reference to fire completely, bless their imported cotton socks].
2009 Victorian Bushfires – Overview Map
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It is instructive to emphasise that the eventual naming of these fires was based on the point of origin, however on the day it had proven problematic during the overwhelming speed and complexity of the multiple simultaneous bushfire emergencies.
The lead item in the Terms of Reference for the Victorian Royal Commission was sensibly to inquire into ‘the causes and circumstances of these bushfires‘.
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The Bushfires Deliberately Lit *
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Of the above 12 bushfires investigated, those known or suspected to have been caused by arson or otherwise in obscure firefighting-speak ‘undetermined‘ or ‘unknown‘ were:
Murrundindi Bushfire
Delburn Bushfire
Redesdale Bushfire
Upper Ferntree Gully Bushfire
Bendigo Bushfire
Churchill Bushfire
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*Various vague assessments as to cause included ‘suspicious’, ‘unknown’, ‘undetermined’, which in 2012 is unacceptable. Compare the term ‘undetermined‘ to any police investigation into an urban fire causing significant damage; such a vague dismissal would be publicly unacceptable. So in the absence of competent investigation, we shall presume bush arson. So half were caused by arson, which is in line with the Australian Institute of Criminology’s conclusions, above.
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The Murrindindi Bushfire
With bushfire conditions extreme (temperature 44.6°C, humidity 8%, wind 46kph, Bushfire Index 110 – off the scale), the bushfire started about 14:55 on 7 February 2009, to the north of a sawmill in Wilhelmina Falls Road, Murrindindi. The cause was assessed as ‘suspicious’.
After the bushfire had merged with the Kilmore East Bushfire some 168,542 hectares had been burnt. Forty people were killed, another 73 people were injured, 538 houses were destroyed or damaged, mainly in and around Marysville, Narbethong and Buxton. The commercial centre of Marysville was razed to the ground. Firefighting resources involved 195 CFA and 311 NEO personnel, supported by 45 CFA appliances, 22 Networked Emergency Organisation (NEO)* appliances and 3 aircraft.
* [Ed: Networked Emergency Organisation? – a rather new convoluted bureaucratic term given to the Royal Commission to collectively represent a mix of disparate government agencies quickly cobbled together to deal with an emergency outside the control of the Country Fire Authority volunteer base].
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The Delburn Bushfire
With bushfire conditions similarly extreme, albeit with a lower Fire Index of 52, this bushfire started as three separate ignitions in the Strzelecki Ranges on 28 and 29 January 2009:
The Ashfords Road Bushfire – discovered on 28 January at about 4.00 pm, 2.5 kilometres north-north-west of Boolarra.
The Creamery Road Bushfire – discovered at about 1.00 pm on 29 January, 2.5 kilometres east of Delburn.
The Lyrebird Walk–Darlimurla Bushfire – discovered at about 3.30 pm on 29 January, 4 kilometres north of Mirboo North near Darlimurla.
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[Ed: So each started under extreme bushfire conditions in the early afternoon]
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The causes of both the above Creamery Road Bushfire and the Lyrebird Walk–Darlimurla Bushfire were assessed as ‘suspicious’ and the Victorian Police have since laid criminal charges against the suspected arsonist.
The three separate bushfires were not contained and ultimately merged. Increasing wind and changes in wind direction caused spotting and resulted in the bushfire spreading quickly east towards the outskirts of the townships of Boolarra and Yinnar. The surrounding townships included Mirboo North (population 1,300), Boolarra (pop. 600), Yinnar (pop. 600) and Churchill (pop. 5,000). Fortunately there were no fatalities or casualties, but 44 houses were destroyed maily on the outskirts of Boolarra, and some 6,534 hectares burnt out. Firefighting resources involved 597 CFA and 699 NEO personnel, supported by 112 CFA appliances, 103 NEO appliances and 14 aircraft.
Delburn Bushfire 30th January 2009 from NASA satellite
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There had been a further three ignitions around the time (1) at the Delburn–Yinnar refuse transfer station, (2) at Ten Mile Creek Rd in a Hancock Victoria Plantation and (3) at Brewsters Rd, Yinnar. Each was either contained or burnt out without fire-fighting intervention.
.The 2009 Delburn Bushfire
A CFA firefighter runs out hose on Piggery Road at Boolarra 2nd February 2009.
(Photo by Greg Cahir)
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The Redesdale Bushfire
The Redesdale Bushfire started with similar bushfire conditions (temperatures reaching 44.7°C, humidity 7%, winds up to 50kph, Bushfire Index 87.2). The bushfire was reported at 3:11 pm on 7 February 2009.
According to the CFA, the ignition started in a creek bed on open farmland between the eastern bank of the Coliban River and the northern end of Summerhill Road, about two kilometres to the west of the township of Redesdale, about 95 kilometres north-west of Melbourne and 35 kilometres south-east of Bendigo. There were more than 100 houses in the bushfire area.
The cause of ignition of the Redesdale fire has been investigated but ‘not determined‘. Possible sources of ignition that have not been excluded are:
(a) ignition by a spark or hot exhaust system
(b) deliberate ignition
(c) ignition by farm operations
(d) ignition by a carelessly discarded cigarette butt
There was no evidence that any of these sources ignited the fire.
The bushfire burned towards the south-east for about 19 kilometres. It was the first of two bushfires in the region on that day, the second originating
in Maiden Gully, 8 kilometres north-west of Bendigo, around 4:20pm. Fortunately again there were no fatalities, but one reported casualty, 14 houses destroyed as well as more than 50 farm sheds and outbuildings, the Baynton church and a bridge, two olive oil plantations, a vineyard and two blue gum plantations, and 7,086 hectares were burned.
Firefighting resources required were 536 CFA and 127 NEO personnel, supported by 103 CFA appliances, 21 NEO dozers and 1 aircraft. Two CFA forward control vehicles were damaged in the course of the fire fight.
The Upper Ferntree Gully fire started on Saturday 7th February 2009 at about 3:40 pm in a suburban railway corridor through bushland between the Burwood Highway and Quarry Road. The bushfire conditions were extreme as with the entire State. By mid afternoon the wind had picked up and was gusting to 90kph, exacerbating the conditions.
The cause of the fire was not known. The fire initially spread by spotting south-east through scrubland between the Burwood Highway and Quarry Road near houses. By 4:30pm an air crane was requested and just after 5pm the Erikson Aircrane nicknamed ‘Elvis’ had made a number of rapid water drops on the fire, obtaining water from a nearby disused quarry, critically preventing the loss of houses and finally contained by 6pm. There were no fatalities or casualties and no houses were lost, but 4 hectares of regenerated scrubland was burnt.
Erickson S-64 Air-Crane Helitanker (N179AC)
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[To stop video and continue, click the pause button bottom left]
Repeat Offenders? – same place lit again in January 2012: a hot, dry, windy afternoon, familiar turf
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‘Members of the Upper Ferntree Gully cricket team were quick to report a grass fire that started near Quarry Rd. Firefighters from Ferntree Gully and Upper Ferntree Gully attended the blaze, which was reported about 7.15pm on Friday. Upper Ferntree Gully CFA captain Peter Smith said the fire started in vegetation-regeneration area near Quarry Rd.
“It was a grass and scrub fire at the old quarry of probably about a third of a hectare,” Mr Smith said. “Conditions were on our side but we wouldn’t have wanted it any hotter or windier.”
About five trucks responded to the blaze and Mr Smith praised the efforts of those who called 000.
“The people that spotted it were fantastic,” Mr Smith said. “They were local guys from the Upper Ferntree Gully Cricket Club I think, that helped us get in and assisted police.”
The cause of the fire is unknown and being investigated.‘
The Bendigo Bushfire started shortly after 4pm on Saturday 7th February 2009 in the tinder dry hilly bushland of Maiden Gully, 8 km north-west of central Bendigo. Bushfire conditions were extreme (temperatures up to 45.4°C, humidity 6%, winds up to 41kph and the Bushfire Index off the scale at 129). The ignition cause was assessed as ‘suspicious’ – the arsonist was classically upwind of the outskirts of targeted western Bendigo.
The bushfire burned through gently rolling country bordering the city’s western suburbs, where there are numerous former gold diggings that are now public open space interspersed between suburban blocks. One person died as a result, plus there were 41 reported casualties. Some 58 homes were destroyed and 341 hectares burned out.
Firefighting resources required were 152 CFA and 111 NEO personnel, which were supported by 30 CFA appliances, 31 NEO appliances and 3 aircraft.
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The Churchill Bushfire
2009 Churchill Fire Map Overview
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The Churchill Bushfire started at 1:30pm on Saturday 7th February 2009, 3km south-east of the Churchill fire station, from two separate ignitions respectively one at the intersection of Glendonald Road and the other at Jelleffs Outlet. The recorded ‘000’ call received from the public, not coincidently, at 13:32, two minutes later.
Like the other bushfires on that day, the climate background was characterised by a decade long El Niño drought, making the native vegetation tinder dry and so extremely flammable. It was a declared Total Fire Ban across Victoria. The Forest Fire Danger index was off the scale recorded at 103 at Latrobe Valley AWS at 4pm, the temperature reached 46.1°C an humidity at just 8% at the Latrobe Valley automatic weather station around 4pm, the humidity just 8%. The maximum winds recorded before the wind change were north-north-westerly
at 44 kilometres an hour at Latrobe Valley Automatic Weather Station at 15:43, before a south-westerly wind change came through.
Before 7th February, the Country Fire Authority and the Department of Sustainability and Environment had already been providing support in response to three separate bushfires which had started on 28th and 29th January and which had coalesced into one and became the Delburn Bushfire. It had been contained by 3rd February. Like the Delburn Bushfire, thge Churchill Bushfire was started on the one day by two separate ignitions by an arsonist. So then was the Churchill Bushfire a copy cat arson episode? Were the two somehow connected? Did both arsonists know each other?
At the time, the cause of the Churchill Bushfire was recorded as ‘suspicious’. It was in fact deliberately lit in two locations, outside the township of Churchill along a roadside next to and upwind of a pine plantation owned by Hancock Plantations Victoria at the foot of Walkers Hill. The tinder dry conditions fanned by a steady breeze meant the ignitions took hold quickly.
The recorded 000 call received from the arsonist himself at 13:32, two minutes later. Actual fire-fighting response was not documented in the Royal Commission report. It could well have been some hours before the blaze was fought. The following photos of the Churchill Fire are purportedly from the nearby township of Morwell looking south. They show the early minutes after the ignitions.
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The very start of Churchill Bushfire
Photo taken looking south from Hunt Street, Morwell
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‘Composition: vertical-panorama of the smoke from the Churchill Fires that have jumped containment lines near me’
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[Source of photos: ‘Nchalada’s Photostream’, Flickr, ^http://www.flickr.com/photos/nchalada/page2/, accessed 20120827, Ed: Due to their controversial nature, the many photos on this Flickr website may not be accessible for long.]
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During the afternoon and early evening the fire travelled rapidly, affecting Jeeralang North, Balook, Le Roy, Koornalla, Callignee, Callignee North, Callignee South, Hazelwood South, Hazelwood North, Traralgon South, Devon, Yarram and Carrajung South. The final statistics confirm that firefighting resources deployed involved 409 CFA, 167 NEO personnel and 33 Hancock Victorian Plantations firefighters, supported by 76 CFA appliances, 29 NEO appliances and 4 waterbombing aircraft.
Although the fire was at its most destructive on 7th February, it was not reported as controlled until 19th February. Eleven people died as a result of the fire, plus an additional 35 casualties, 156 houses were destroyed, and more than 36,000 hectares were burnt.
About 1000 hectares of Bluegum plantations and 1700 hectares of Radiata Pine plantations owned Hancock Victorian Plantations by were burnt in the fires. An untold number of livestock and wildlife were also burned to death. In the nearby Delburn Fire, an arrest has been made but the outcome of that trial is not yet known at the time of publishing this article.
‘Residents of fire ravaged Gippsland towns have been warned to remain alert despite cooler temperatures today. So far 27 homes around Boolarra and Mirboo North have been lost in the fires. (Ed: The Delburn Bushfire)
More than 400 firefighters from as far as Mildura are currently battling the 6300 hectare blaze with 113 fire trucks, 14 helicopters and 12 bulldozers. About 40 Boolarra and Mirboo North residents have spent the past two nights in emergency accommodation at Monash University in Churchill, after fire swept through their town on Friday.
More than 100 residents attended a community meeting in Churchill this morning to discover whether their properties had survived the weekend.
CFA spokeswoman Rachel Allen warned locals the blaze was far from being classified as safe, despite drizzle predicted and a top temperature of only 29 degrees. “Obviously the threat has diminished somewhat because of the cooler temperatures, but it as important now as it was a few days ago to keep yourselves aware,” Ms Allen said.
Peter McHugh from the Department of Sustainability and Environment agreed, saying the fire threat “was far from over,” and that residents need to remain vigilant for flying embers.
Mr McHugh said possible electrical storms predicted to hit the area later today are a cause of concern for emergency services.
The Delburn fires have claimed 27 homes, 59 sheds, 5 cars and a piggery since they began on Wednesday. Another home is also believed to have been lost yesterday, but fire crews have so far been unable to access the property, just outside Mirboo North. Almost 40 homes are still left without power, while water supply has been restored to Boolarra.
Department of Primary Industries staff are now counting livestock losses around the Boolarra area, and the number is believed to be substantial.
Latrobe City CEO Paul Buckley said it would take at least a year to rebuild Mirboo North and Boolarra.
“When the fires hit Toongabbie about three years ago that took six months to rebuild, and this one is much, much worse,” Mr Buckley said.
Boolarra evacuees housed in Monash University student accommodation units have shared their horror stories of the blaze that engulfed their town.
Tania Martin, 35, praised the efforts of her partner Dave Caldwell, 40, for saving both theirs and their neighbours’ house.
Ms Martin and her son Storm, 10, left their Boolarra home late Friday while Mr Caldwell stayed behind to defend the properties.
“I think he is an absolute hero,” Ms Martin said. Mr Caldwell worked for hours pumping water on both houses as flying embers showered all around him from the fire less than 100 metres away. But Mr Caldwell said the real heroes are the firefighters who have been working around the clock.
“Those guys and girls, you should watch them heading over the hill straight for the fire. It’s unbelievable,” Mr Caldwell said. “They are made of the right stuff, they are.”
Val Kingston, 68, and her husband recently moved to Boolarra from Melbourne for a “tree change.” “And now all the trees are gone,” Ms Kingston said.
Ms Kingston said leaving Boolarra lat Friday had been difficult. “It was the saddest sight I have ever seen looking over my shoulder as I drove away. I just thought “there goes my town.”
Ms Kingston praised the efforts of Monash University residential staff. The University purchased fans for the units where evacuees have set up makeshift homes. They have also provided tea and coffee and icy poles for the kids. “We can’t thank them enough,” Ms Kingston said.
A further 20 firefighters from Mildura and 18 firefighters from Ballarat arrived in Churchill this morning to relieve exhausted colleagues who have been stationed on the fire front for the past two days.
The Churchill fire was threatening communities in south Gippsland late on Monday, fire authorities said. The 33,000 hectare blaze was threatening the community of Won Wron just north of Yarram, in south Gippsland at 5.30pm (AEDT) on Monday.
Residents of nearby Carrajung on the east side of Carrajung-Woodside Road were also expected to be impacted directly.
The Country Fire Authority also issued an urgent threat message at 4.15pm (AEDT) to residents near the Thomson Road area, Churchill, who were being directly hit by the fire. A CFA spokesman said the fire threat had increased as freshening winds picked up.
The death toll from the fires, which police believe were deliberately lit, in the area continued to rise. Nineteen people have now been confirmed dead in the region after the Churchill fires devastated the towns of Callignee, Hazelwood, Jeeralang and Koornalla in southwest Gippsland.
Nine people died in Callignee, one person was killed in Upper Callignee, four people died at Hazelwood, one at Jeeralang and four at Koornalla.
The Churchill fires south of the Princes Highway have so far burnt about 33,000 hectares, while the Bunyip Ridge fire, north of the highway, has razed 25,000 hectares.
Containment lines are also being established on the western and eastern flanks of the Bunyip blaze. Residents of Gembrook have also been warned to be vigilant, although the town is not currently under threat.
In the north of the state, fire around Dederang escalated significantly late on Monday afternoon, also threatening the towns of Beechworth and Yackandandah. The fire was spotting ahead of the main fire and ash and embers were threatening communities in Gundowring, Gundowring Upper, Glen Creek, Kergunyah South, Mudgeegonga and Running Creek. Authorities said some fires could take weeks to contain.
At least 750 homes have been destroyed and more than 330,000 hectares burnt out. The latest death toll is 131, which surpasses the toll from the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, in which 75 people died in Victoria and South Australia, and the Black Friday bushfires of 1939, which killed 71.’
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Misfit Profile of a Bush Arsonist
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Brendan James Sokaluk, was in April 2012 found guilty of all 10 counts of arson causing death by the Victorian Supreme Court in Melbourne for deliberately lighting the Churchill Bushfire on 7th February, 2009. Sokaluk was an ex-volunteer firefighter with a local brigade of the Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA) from 1987 to 1988, some twenty years prior.
Brendan SokalukNot the smartest bush arsonist, but then could he be?
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Sokaluk, then aged 39, claimed that his old sky blue Holden HJ sedan had apparently broken down on the road near where the fire started, next to a pine plantation where the Churchill Black Saturday fire had begun just minutes earlier.
He was the only outsider on the road. To the residents of Glendonald Road busily packing up their possessions and preparing to flee the raging fire, Brendan Sokaluk stood out. Dressed in shorts and sandals, he was frantically trying to restart his broken-down Holden, which was partially blocking the gravel road.
Once home, Sokaluk climbed on to the roof of his house so he could look back towards Glendonald Road and watch the fire burn.
Sokaluk told several lies to cover his tracks. He told one person he was on his way to a wedding, while to others he said he was visiting a friend in the area. As he was driven back to Churchill by a resident, Sokaluk was overheard telling his father on the phone that he had been in the area to visit a friend to get his chisel set back.
Days later Sokaluk was arrested on the following Friday 12th February on a local street while working delivering the local Latrobe Valley Express newspaper. Sokaluk was interviewed by police for about three hours both at the scene of the fire and in an interview room at a local police station. Police interviewed him and on the following day, Saturday 13th February, they returned him to Glendonald Road and to nearby Jelleff’s Outlet, where the fire had started and where the landscape was now blackened and burnt out.
What emerged was that on the morning of 7th February, Sokaluk had picked up his father Kazimir in his distinctive sky blue Holden HJ and the pair drove to Morwell and Traralgon, visited auto and hardware stores, had lunch at KFC and bought lottery tickets. Kazimir Sokaluk said Brendan’s car was playing up and “running rough” but against his advice his son said he was “going up into the trees” because it was cooler there. Sokaluk also said he wanted to get a chisel set back from a friend named Dave who lived in that area. Another excuse was to access his apparent junk metal collection along Glendonald Road.
The police attempted a re-enactment and the field interview was recorded by video. Sokaluk admitted to police that he had started the blaze, but declared it had been an accident after he dropped cigarette ash out of his car window. He explained that the previous Saturday he had been driving slow, dawdling along in his car. “Looking for animals and stuff,” he said. Asked if he is familiar with the area, he replies: “It’s different `cause it’s not green no more. It’s all burnt out.” The detective asks “How do you know this area?” Sokaluk replied it was where he threw his piece of paper out the window.
“Part of my cigarette thing fell on the floor, so I got a bit of paper out to grab it and stuff… I thought it was dead and I’ve chucked it out the window, but I didn’t know it had lit up. I thought it was out when I threw the paper out the window.” Sokaluk told them. “I had no intention of this all to happen. Now I have to put up [with it] for the rest of my life and it makes me sad.”
The cigarette ash explanation was pivotal in what was a largely circumstantial case. But Sokaluk strenuously denied deliberately starting the fire. But then Sokaluk had told several lies to cover his tracks. He was a serial liar. Yet, without witnesses, evidence, a confession, proving bush arson is inherently difficult.
Prosecutor Ray Elston Senior Counsel argued that Sokaluk deliberately drove to bushland and started a fire on a day that had temperatures that reached nearly 45C. He was calculating enough to lie about his reasons for being in the area, to try to cover his tracks and to point the finger at others. Sokaluk tried to disguise his crime by claiming to police that it was an accident, lying about his reasons for being in the area and trying to point the finger at others, including making a false anonymous report to Crime Stoppers from his home computer blaming a Department of Sustainability and Environment worker for the fire.
Police managed to piece together Sokaluk’s movements on Black Saturday almost to the minute from phone records, witness accounts, shop receipts and CCTV footage. At 1.16 pm Sokaluk was in the IGA store in Churchill where he bought cigarettes before heading off into the Jeeralang Hills. Within 15 minutes a fire erupted in the hills and witnesses said that in tinder dry conditions the inferno tore through the bush seawards towards Yarram.
The Crown called 80 witnesses and its case was a mosaic of evidence that pointed to the guilt of Sokaluk. Mr Elston told the jury the accused had no reason to be in the area that day and if he was going to see Dave, who was home, he never got there.
“Why did he travel on a dirt road to get out there?” Mr Elston said to the jury in his summing up. “Why did he drive off that dirt road on to a graded track on the south side of Glendonald Road? A short distance from where the fire started Sokaluk’s car broke down and he was spotted at the side of the road by a Churchill CFA truck and then later picked up by a couple who drove him back to town.
Mr Elston told the jury:
”When the accused man arrives at that intersection there is no fire. ‘No one else is suggested to be present. When he leaves it’s ablaze. All causes save for deliberate ignition of this fire have been eliminated. ‘There is only therefore one irresistible conclusion to draw from the totality of the material, with respect, we suggest, and that is the accused man set those fires at two points.”
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Neighbours saw Sokaluk on his roof watching the progress of the fire and for some never explained reason he later walked back into the fire area. A resident found him in his back yard and told him to shelter in his house a few minutes before the returning fire storm passed. The jury saw a pathetic picture of Sokaluk with a garden hose in his hand taken by the resident.
It was not until after he was charged with 10 counts of arson causing death that experts diagnosed him with autism spectrum disorder. Until then his family had believed his disability was result of a difficult birth. People in the Churchill area thought Sokaluk was a weirdo and called him” beanie boy” and other names and as soon as locals learned he was in the area where the bushfire erupted he became the prime suspect.
Sokaluk’s barrister Jane Dixon SC during the trial painted a picture of a harmless individual, a “simpleton” whose autism set him apart from others in the community – a “lights out and no-one home” type of personality. “He’s a bit of a misfit really, but nevertheless he muddled along in his own way, muddled along OK with a bit of help from his mum and dad, comfortable enough with his own company, his dog, his hobbies, his obsessions.”
After leaving school, where he had been bullied, Sokaluk worked in a series of jobs before becoming a gardener at Monash University. He did that job for nearly 18 years. Sokaluk spent his days watching kids TV and collecting scrap metal with his dog. Neighbours would hear Sokaluk playing Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine tapes as he worked in his shed, where he liked to tinker with scrap metal and other junk he had found dumped in the area. Sokaluk’s neighbour Patricia Hammond would sometimes talk to him over the back fence. He would talk to his dog as if he was talking to a child, she said during the trial.
Justice Paul Coghlan of the Victorian Supreme Court sentenced Sokaluk stated in his summing up: “The event was terrifying for all involved in the fires, whether directly or otherwise,” he said. “For the victims, these were and are life-changing events and no sentence that I impose can compensate for their loss.”
Yet Justice Paul Coghlan of the Victorian Supreme Court sentenced Sokaluk to a non-parole custodial sentence of just 14 years. That is one and half years for each human death, excluding the millions of dollars in property damage and the horrific cruel burning to death of all people and animals, the other irreversible damage and tragedy – 156 homes with their personal possessions and memories, the livestock, 36,000 hectares of land, all the agricultural equipment and infrastructure, the forgotten wildlife.
Sokaluk is one of Australia’s worst mass killers as Justice Coghlan concluded. Sokaluk should never be released. Yet his lawyers have already said they are likely to appeal. So who are the real villians? Sokaluk’s barrister Jane Dixon, SC, argued her client had autism and was a simple man and a misfit who was incapable of concocting a web of lies or deceit. Cold comfort to the victims. It was early afternoon on an extreme bushfire day. Sokaluk was upwind of and next to a pine plantation. Sokaluk knew what he was doing.
Had he done it before but not been caught?
Why did he leave the CFA?
Had he been dismissed?
In the CFA one is taught how to light fires for prescribed burning. What triggered his arson?
Was it the devastation and attention that the Delburn Bushfire had created? It too was the cause of local arson.
What was the news reporting like at the time?
Did the media sensationalising serve to encourage Sokaluk as a dormant arsonist to copycat?
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As aptly described by the Herald Sun’ Norrie Ross:
“He was a killer who brought death and devastation to his own community and left a vile legacy for LaTrobe Valley that will never be forgotten or erased.”
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Royal Commission’s Findings into Bush Arson
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One of the Royal Commission’s identified research gaps and priorities emanating out of its analysis was the extent of ‘Deliberately Lit Bushfires‘ and the ‘Causes of Fire-setting Behaviour‘. [Source: ‘Final Report – Summary’, July 2010, Vol. 1, p.20, by 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, State Government of Victoria ]
Following from this, the Royal Commission made two specific recommendations to address what it terms ‘Deliberately lit Fires’. Those two recommendations read as follows:
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ROYAL COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION 35
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Victoria Police continue to pursue a coordinated statewide approach to arson prevention and regularly review its approach to ensure that it contains the following elements:
High-level commitment from senior police
A research program aimed at refining arson prevention and detection strategies
Centralised coordination that includes comprehensive training, periodic evaluation of arson prevention strategies and programs, and promotion of best-practice prevention approaches
A requirement that all fire-prone police service areas have arson prevention plans and programs, according to their level of risk.
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ROYAL COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION 36
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The Commonwealth, states and territories continue to pursue the National Action Plan to Reduce Bushfire Arson in Australia, giving priority to producing a nationally consistent framework for data collection and evaluating current and proposed programs in order to identify and share best-practice approaches.
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[Source: ‘Final Report – Summary’, July 2010, Vol. 1, pp.30-31, by 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, State Government of Victoria ]
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Misfits in Fire Fighting
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It is disturbing that Sokaluk’s lawyer went to considerable effort and persuasion to try to have Sokaluk acquitted on mental illness grounds. Despite the adversarial nature of our legal system, the ego and public profile of lawyers should not be encouraged in spite of justice. Why was Sokaluk entitled to be represented by expensive and exclusive Senior Counsel? The bastard was at best entitled to Legal Aid. What was the total cost to Victorian taxpayers for his legal defence case? Why was the cost not made public?
Sokaluk was not just an arsonist. The scale and impact of his crime escalates him to being a pyroterrorist. But in Australia, the law lags reality. The maximum penalty for arson is 25 years custodial sentence, yet bushfire arson carries a maximum penalty of just 14 or 15 years. Sokaluk received just 14 years – the maximum penalty for arsonists are charged with criminal damage by fire or similar offences under the Bushfire Act or a manslaughter charge if someone dies as a result of the fire.
What is the rationale behind that discrepancy? It is archaic colonial legislation that sends a message that the value of Australia’s natural environment matters not. But when the bush burns, sometimes it lead to 173 human lives destroyed, as well as widespread calamity and wildlife extinctions.
Sokaluk’s 14 years custodial sentence translates to just 15 months in prison for each human he killed by fire. His sentence ignores his inflicting 35 human casualties, 156 houses destroyed, and more than 36,000 hectares of native forest and plantation forest burnt. Solaluk’s penalty is a judicial disgrace. The slap on the wrist penalty sends an sick and enticing message to dormant serial arsonists, that no matter how bad the fire you may light, at worst you get just 14 years. Solaluk should rot in prison. Yet legally technically, Sokaluk could have received the maximum penalty under the Victorian Forests Act of 1958 for ‘Lighting – intentionally or negligently and where authority should have been obtained – or maintaining a fire in the open air in a state forest or national park; failing to prevent the spread of a fire; leaving a fire without taking reasonable precautions to prevent it spreading or causing injury’.
The maximum penalty? 2 years
Australia’s arson laws and penalties are obscenely excusing of mass murder by being burned alive, horrific burn injuries, considerable and absolute property loss, large scale livestock loss by being burned alive, widespread wildlife habitat killing by being burned alive, livelong trauma, ruination of families and communities, immense suffering, widespread habitat destruction, and the irreversible destruction of a region in every sence of the meaning.
Yet Australian backward politicians dismissively treat bush arson akin to the playing with matches of a fire bug.
In the United States, ‘pyroterrorism’ is becoming seriously recognised. It is deemed to be the willful destruction of a Nation’s forests, farms and cities, through the use of fire. On 28th March 2005 the US Homeland Security held a press conference and revealed that they now had an anti-pyroterrorist taskforce. On April 1st, George W. Bush announced that “Anyone caught deliberately setting forest fires as an act of pyroterrorism will be dealt with the same way we treat other terrorists. Pyroterrorists are getting smarter and learning how to create bigger, more unstoppable forest fires… or there are copycats who want to do the same thing.
The Australian Institute of Criminology has concluded that half of Australia’s 20,000 to 30,000 vegetation fires each year are deliberately lit, costing the community $1.6 billion per year. So what is the Australian Government doing about this home grown terrorism? Nothing!
Many bushfire arsonist are disturbingly drawn from the very agencies entrusted to fight fires. But where are the statistics and what is being done about it?
How many misfits serve in volunteer fire fighting across Australia? How many have been psychologically tested as suitable? How many are subject to IQ tests before joining? None? How many dormant Sokaluks does Australian rural fire-fighting have in its ranks?
The Australian Government at federal and delegated state level neglectfully relies upon a low-cost volunteer base that is drawn from a goodwilling Australian culture, but which is dangerously under-resourced, underfunded and recipient of propaganda that perpetuates this.
Consequently, Australia’s non urban fire-fighting is so desperate for volunteers that dormant Sokaluks are unscrutinised, undetected and yet with their bushfire fighting training are trained to become the most deadly bush arsonists of all.
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Armageddon aftermath of Sokaluk’s 2009 Churchill Bushfire Arson– he’ll be out in just 14 years
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‘Police in Victoria are refusing to confirm reports that the major suspect in their investigation into the marysville bushfire is a member of the Country Fire Authority. Earlier this month detectives said they were closing in on the arsonist responsible. The Marysville fire claimed more than 30 lives. Fairfax Media has reported that the CFA fire-fighter is now considered the major suspect and has been questioned and released with investigations continuing. The CFA won’t comment except to say it’s working closely with the Phoenix Taskforce investigating the fires.’
‘A CFA volunteer was jailed for 22 months today for starting a series of bushfires that had to be fought by his comrades in the local brigade. Justice Michael Tinney told Damian Lisle, 36, that any of the fires had the potential to cause catastrophic loss of life and property in one of Victoria’s highest bushfire danger areas, the Herald Sun reports.
Lisle drove around Mt Evelyn throwing lit pieces of paper from his car just days after the first anniversary of Black Saturday in which 173 Victorians lost their lives. Judge Tinney said Lisle started fires in dead-end streets near houses and in bushland and he did not hang around to see what happened. “You lit these fires and you left. Thereafter it was in the lap of the gods,” Judge Tinney said in his County Court sentence.
Lisle pleaded guilty to nine charges that on February 17, 2010, he intentionally caused a bushfire, and to counts of attempting to escape from custody and drink driving. Judge Tinney said Lisle had a history of mental and alcohol problems and at the time of his offending he was suspended from the Mt Evelyn CFA and facing the sack from his job as an assistant supermarket manager. After he was caught, Lisle told police he had drunk eight stubbies and added: “I remember being angry. I don’t know what about.”
Each of the arson counts faced by Lisle carries a maximum of 15 years jail. Judge Tinney said members of the Mt Evelyn brigade told the court that his crimes had a significant impact on CFA morale. The judge said the fact that Lisle was a CFA volunteer and had fought bushfires made him more aware of the danger to life and limb and both general and specific deterrence were important factors in sentencing.
During a court appearance at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court Lisle jumped the dock and tried to escape and the judge said two people were injured trying to restrain him. He set a maximum term of three years and 10 months.’
‘A CFA volunteer has been charged over a series of fires north of Melbourne, including one on Christmas Day. A man will appear in court today charged with lighting a series of bushfires north of Melbourne.
Jarred Brewer, 19, of Darraweit Guim, near Wallan, has been charged with five counts of intentionally starting a bushfire and 16 counts of improper use of emergency services.Brewer was arrested yesterday following a joint operation between Seymour detectives and the arson squad that began in May last year. The charges relate to fires in bush at Wallan and at nearby Mount Disappointment.
Mr Brewer faced Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court briefly yesterday afternoon before he was remanded until today. Police prosecutor Sen-Constable Renee Azzopardi told the court Mr Brewer had been charged over fires at Mt Disappointment on November 12 and Christmas Day and two fires at Wallan on January 15.
Sen-Constable Azzopardi said he is also alleged to have made 16 calls to 000 reporting fires. At the Christmas Day fire a 20L fuel container and matches were allegedly found.At one of the fires at Wallan investigators believe the fire was started using fire starters. Mr Brewer was allegedly captured on CCTV footage at Safeway in Wallan shortly before the fire with a shopping bag. The court was told that store records showed a BBQ gas lighter and a bag of fire starters were purchased at that time.
Sen-Constable Azzopardi said local emergency services believed their resources were deliberately stretched so that Darraweit Guim fire brigade could be turned out to fires. The court heard that Mr Brewer attended a fire station at one point and became abusive to fire fighters when they wouldn’t allow him on a truck. Court documents reveal that Mr Brewer has also been charged with lighting fires at Wallan on October 10 and November 16.’
The following article was written by Andrew Campbell 20090209 and in the days following Victoria’s ‘Black Saturday‘ bushfire disaster(s) of February 2009. It is entitled ‘Thoughts on the Victorian Bushfires‘ and is reproduced with permission below. It contributes a insightful and reflective review as well as offering bushfire management reform initiatives out of this tragedy and ahead of future inevitable wildfire emergencies.
The bulk of this essay was written on 10 February 2009, circulated by email among colleagues and posted on Professor Campbell’s web site. It received a strong positive response, eliciting many useful additional points, some of which are now incorporated in this updated version. The original document may be accessed from Professor Campbell’s website Triple Helix Consulting ^http://www.triplehelix.com.au, specifically donwloaded ^http://www.triplehelix.com.au/documents/AndrewCampbellontheVictorianBushfires_000.pdf
Triple Helix Consulting site offers a range of information resources including publications, presentations and projects. As of February 2011, Andrew Campbell has taken on a new role as Professor and Inaugural Director of the Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods (RIEL) at Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia. This website will be maintained as a record of Triple Helix outputs, but Andrew’s more recent writings and talks will be accessible through RIEL.
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The images have been added.
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Approach to Marysville before Black Saturday
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‘Thoughts on the Victorian Bushfires’
by Andrew Campbell
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Countryside north of Marysville before Black Saturday
(Marysville is in the valley amongst the coloured deciduous trees)
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A friend in America asked me for my thoughts about some of the media and web reports circulating about the Victorian fires.
As a Victorian forester with professional training in fire behaviour, fire suppression and fire management, and with experience as a sector boss in fires leading up to and including Ash Wednesday (February 1983), I have maintained an on-going interest in fire management in Australia. As a consultant policy adviser and research manager I’m interested in what our
response says about our collective knowledge base. The way we handle fires for me is one of the key indicators for how well we are learning to live in this ancient continent. The Victorian fires, and in particular some of the media since the fires, suggest that we have a long way to go in improving the ecological literacy of Australians and the body politic.
There has been lots of rabid stuff coming out since 7th February, pushing long-held anti-green agendas. Suggestions that it’s all the greenies’ fault and headlines like “will the real arsonists
please stand up” claiming that conservationists, tree protection policies and green groups’ opposition to hazard reduction burning are to blame for the fires — and by implication, the tragic loss of life and on-going suffering for people and wildlife — have been particularly ghoulish and offensive.
Claims that more broadscale fuel reduction burning in Victoria’s forests would have prevented these fires and the horrendous loss of life are nonsense. The reasons why these fires have been so destructive of life and property are multiple, interacting, complex and systemic – inevitably a recipe for media to simplify and take short-cuts to reach a convenient narrative (even better if it can be polarised into two opposing camps) that ends up being misleading and unhelpful.
Three crucial facts: 47 degrees temp (115 Fahrenheit), 120km/hr winds and relative humidity of 6%. That these conditions followed two weeks of >40 degrees heat wave, that in turn followed an unusually wet November-December and lots of late spring-early summer growth, after a decade of drought, made for an explosive tinderbox and an unprecedented
Fire Danger Index.
7th February 2009 looking east of Melbourne
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Under those conditions, fuel reduction, access tracks etc are much less useful. These fires burnt through areas that had been burnt by wildfire in 2004, and logging coupes that had been clear-felled within recent years. Mountain Ash forests — the tallest flowering plants in the world — have a lifecycle adaptation to fire. They are difficult to ignite (because they are usually wet forests with predominantly smooth bark), but when the conditions are right, they burn ferociously, creating an ash bed suitable for their regenerating seedlings. As ash seedlings are shade-intolerant, they regenerate best after very hot fires that destroy the canopy. In the absence of such fires over their life cycle, they will not persist. When fires are exploding through the canopies of 200+ feet high trees with volatilised oils creating a superheated vapour, the ground layer becomes virtually irrelevant. Witnesses described huge trees literally exploding, and that is an accurate description under these sorts of conditions.
There were few if any lightning strikes on Saturday until the cool change came through in the evening. Along with problems with power lines, arson probably played a role and two people have already been arrested. The authorities were getting saturation airtime on Melbourne radio and TV from Wednesday onwards, telling people to avoid forested areas if at all possible on Saturday. They were saying very clearly that Saturday would be the worst fire conditions ever experienced in Victoria. While these warnings were essential, it is possible that these very warnings motivated arsonists. There has been too little bushfire research on arson, but that which has been done suggests that it is an important factor in large wildfires.
Black Saturday Firestorm
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Australia (especially Victoria) needs a complete rethink of fire preparedness. With a drying, warming climate, these hitherto unprecedented conditions will become more frequent in future. Professor David Karoly of the University of Melbourne has explained that the maximum temperature, relative humidity and drought index (but not wind speed) in Victoria on 7 February were clearly exceptional and can reasonably be linked to climate change. In early 2007, the Climate Institute commissioned the Bushfire CRC, the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO to undertake the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the impact of climate change on bushfire weather in Australia. That report concluded that on the current climate change trajectory, very extreme fire weather days may occur around twice as often by 2020 and four to five times as often by 2050 across much of southern and eastern Australia.
Few people have made the connect between fires and water supplies. If we did fuel reduction burns over the areas and on the frequencies advocated by the “it’s all the greenies’ fault” brigade, then water yields from forested catchments would drop, CO2 emissions would increase, species composition of forests would change and some species would disappear. Crucially, we would still have significant risks to life and property, both as a direct result of fuel reduction burns getting away, and because it would not prevent wildfires under the sorts of extreme conditions experienced on 7 February.
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The answers for me lie in these areas:
Dramatically improved fire detection, early warning and first attack capabilities, with real-time use of satellite imagery, many more aircraft already in the air over high-risk areas on high-risk days, and highly trained first attack crews in helicopters distributed around the state (noting that aerial operations are difficult in very windy conditions and first attack possibilities are limited under the catastrophic conditions of 7 February);
More aggressive fuel management immediately around houses and fire survival bunkers for houses/communities in fire prone areas, and changes to planning laws, home lending and insurance policies and practices, and building codes to mandate fire-sensitive design for measures such as window shutters, leafless guttering systems, under-floor venting, gas bottle storage etc;
Dramatically ramped up efforts to identify arsonists (psychological profiling of fire volunteers etc), penalties for arson, and close monitoring of known arsonists on bad days, with increases in the size of arson squads and stronger penalties for arson; and
Much better and mandatory training in fire preparedness for everyone in high-risk areas.
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The ‘leave early, or prepare, stay and fight’ policy remains the right policy. But the bar has been lifted for both options. Leave early means before the high-risk day (which is reasonable now that forecasts are so accurate). Prepare, stay and fight means being trained, equipped and ready with a plan B (the survival bunker) for those rare (but more likely in future) situations (>40C, <20% relative humidity, >80km/hr winds, super-dry fuels) like 7 February where fire behaviour becomes unpredictable and off the scale. If you don’t have such a bunker (see below) and the forecast is for such conditions, as was clear by 4 February, then you should leave very early.
If you have a house in a beautiful bush setting on an elevated site that is difficult to defend, then a valid strategy would be to invest in insurance rather than bunkers, tanks, pumps and so on. Then get into the habit of leaving (and having critical possessions, pets etc organised) before extreme fire weather arrives. You’d then take your chances with the house, knowing that there is still a greater chance of being in a car accident in any one year than having your house burnt down in a bushfire. Even in this scenario though, I’d nevertheless reduce fuel loads in the vicinity of the house as far as possible.
Rob Gell (pers comm), weatherman, communicator and environmentalist, responded to an earlier version of this piece, noting that councils, banks and insurers have much to answer for, and big opportunities to improve their practices:
“They’ve let thousands of lower socioeconomic sector families settle in fire-prone areas where lots are cheaper and the urban planning issues of overlooking and proximity are not on the agenda. The insurance industry and the banks have been accomplices. The banks have required insurance to build but are not concerned when the policies lapse after the first 12 months. More than 50% of houses were uninsured – I have heard 58%! The insurance companies have not insisted on annually checked and approved Fire Plans – let alone provide a premium discount if a plan is approved. There are no premium discounts for fire-proof house design or for sprinkler systems, working pumps etc.”
Turning off the gas supply at the mains on high-risk days would also reduce the risk for residences. Fuel reduction near houses is important. If councils are prepared to approve dwellings being built in high-risk areas, then it follows that they also need to approve the necessary clearing. But for small lots on high risk sites in forested regions, even total clearing may not be sufficient to ensure safety under extreme conditions, so much more consideration needs to be given to the landscape planning and development approval processes in the first place.
Professor Michael Buxton of RMIT notes (pers comm) that:
“anticipatory policies on the use of materials, building design and building location are long overdue. Governments keep avoiding these issues. Fire hazard mapping is proceeding, but government and local responses remain inadequate. Why do we prevent people from building in a flood plain but allow developers to subdivide land on ridges with one access point in areas of high potential fire hazard?”
For existing houses, if people have any intention of staying, it is important to have at least one significant area of cleared land free of flammable material. This is a completely different matter to broadscale fuel reduction over the whole forest estate. In times past, we would have called that cleared safe area a lawn. Now we need to look at other options.
These fires proved that a parked vehicle (preferably a diesel) with the engine running and the air-conditioning on full recirculating could be a suitable survival shelter, provided it was parked on a large enough clear apron away from major fuel loads. But they also reinforced the well-known point that attempting to flee in a car in dense smoke once the fires are well underway is incredibly risky.
For me, much of the media commentary, the so-called informed opinion and the human behaviour on display during and since the fires, underline the point that in many ways we are still behaving more like displaced Poms, than Australians who are adapted to living in this extraordinary continent. Rowan Reid from the University of Melbourne, wondered in The Age why it is that our weather forecasts don’t routinely report the fire danger index (see below) to better educate the community about likely fire behaviour. It’s also critical that people learn that on extreme fire days they must be well clothed, in heavy cotton from ankle to wrist, with a good hat (preferably a hard hat) and something to cover the face. I find that the hard hat with integrated visor that you can buy with your Stihl chainsaw is a good start.
I cannot believe all the TV footage from the fire zones (in these fires and other recent big fires) showing people trying to defend their properties wearing shorts, singlets and thongs.
Fire-resistant footwear is especially important under ember attack in thick smoke. In countries where temperatures often exceed 40C, the natives dress in long loose-fitting robes, usually white, they always have head-dress and they don’t expose acres of flesh directly to the sun — and that’s in daily life, let alone when confronting a fire…
There is a crucial distinction between strategic hazard reduction burning and managing fuel loads in the immediate vicinity of houses and townships; and broadscale fuel reduction burns across the whole forest estate. I think the former is under-done and the latter is overrated. The crucial point that must be underlined is that under very extreme conditions (Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) above 50 — see below), fuel loads are no longer the key driver of fire behaviour, compared with weather (some of which is fire-induced) and topography (especially slope). It is worth remembering that in January 2003, Canberra had a strip 5-10 km wide of flogged-out, drought-stricken paddocks with not a blade of grass on them as a “fire break” to its west, but this did not prevent fires from reaching the pine plantations on its western edge. Once that happened, then of course high fuel loads so close to houses (noting that the plantations were there before the suburbs) led to houses in Duffy, Chapman and Holder being lost.
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“This is a completely different matter to broadscale fuel reduction over the whole forest estate.”
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In particular, the suggestion that having had more fuel reduction burning over larger areas more frequently during the drought of the last decade in Victoria would have prevented
these fires — and by extension that doing even more of it is essential in the hotter, drier climate we are moving into — is not backed up by the best available science. Fuel reduction burning doesn’t bring rain. [Note: Moreover, recent research by Clive McAlpine and colleagues has found a statistically significant correlation between the warming and drying in southern and eastern Australia in recent decades and large-scale broadacre land clearing.]
In the bush itself, there is a case for strategic hazard reduction burns in dry sclerophyll stringybark and box-ironbark forests, woodlands and grasslands. Done properly, strategic hazard reduction burns can reduce fire crowning behaviour and increase the probability of control under most conditions. There is a case for arguing that the 2003 and 2006-7 fires lasted so long because fuel build up over large areas made fire control more difficult. But it does not necessarily follow that the answer is therefore more frequent burning off on a larger scale. We need more and better research to understand the appropriate scale, pattern and frequency that will balance ecological health with (changing) fire protection objectives. Fuel reduction burning on the scale and frequency advocated recently by some advocates (e.g. 10% of whole estate every year) is a blunt instrument likely to lead to perverse outcomes without preventing large fires under catastrophic conditions.
The word ‘strategic’ is important. It is easily abused, for example in proposals to clear great swathes of bush in “strategic firebreaks” that coincidentally align very well with freeway construction programs. For me, ‘strategic’ hazard reduction means consistent with a well thought-through strategy, based on the best available (preferably current) scientific research, with very clear and internally consistent objectives (which balance other public good objectives like water, greenhouse and biodiversity) and performance measures. Much that has been advocated recently fails those tests.
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“There is a compelling case for national leadership in bushfire policy, education, research,knowledge management, monitoring and evaluation, and building the technical capabilities we will need in a much more challenging future for fire management in Australia.”
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Water catchments need to be handled very carefully or water yields will drop even further. Fire researchers are already questioning the increasing tendency to use back-burning as a first option rather than a last option in fire suppression, because it increases the ultimate size of fires and the length of the burning edge. Lives have already been lost during back burns. On balance, keeping more tracks open is justified, provided tracks are well-designed and maintained.
Climate change means that the notion of a ‘cool burn’ is problematic. There have already been coroners’ inquests into the deaths of firefighters undertaking so-called ‘cool burns’. Fuel reduction in wet sclerophyll forests is difficult, because when the forest is dry enough to burn, it means virtually having a planned wildfire. Professor Peter Kanowski of the Australian National University has published a very useful briefing note on fuel reduction burning for the Institute of Foresters, pointing out that, while there is a case for more fuel reduction burning, there are many constraints, and it can’t be implemented in fire-sensitive wet eucalypt forests carrying heavy fuel loads such as the Mountain Ash forests north-east of Melbourne.
It is also a fallacy to suggest that tall wet eucalypt forest in south-eastern Australia used to be burned on a regular basis by Aboriginal people and that with increased frequency and
extent of fuel reduction burning, we would be returning to a more ‘natural’ burning regime. Painstaking research by Ron Hateley of Clunes, in a forthcoming book drawing upon a wide range of primary sources from the diaries of the first settlers and explorers, finds no evidence of so called ‘firestick farming’ by Aboriginal people in Victorian forests. Such burning may have occurred on a modest scale in the open woodlands and grasslands of northern Victoria, but there is no solid primary evidence in either the early diaries, the sedimentary record or the dendrochronological record (tree rings) that Aboriginal people burned the forests of southern and eastern Victoria. Hateley documents solid evidence that historians and others have extrapolated evidence from northern Australia, assuming that Aboriginal burning practices in the northern savannas were also employed in the forests of southeastern Australia. Repeated and reinforced by authors as diverse and notable as Geoffrey Blainey, Tim Flannery and Phil Cheney, this has become an enduring and unhelpful myth. The primary evidence suggests that the tall wet sclerophyll forests and temperate rainforests of south-eastern Australia were characterised by a thick, almost impenetrable understorey, and not subject to regular firing by humans prior to European settlement. Phil Zylstra’s research, based on dendrochronology and charcoal and pollen deposits, suggests that fire frequency in the Australian Alps and the wet sclerophyll forests of south-eastern Australia has substantially increased since European settlement.
Mount Buffalo incinerated
(Photo: Johannes Smit)
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Drying conditions mean that in south-eastern Australia, a ‘cool burn’ in our tall eucalypt forests is now most likely possible in spring, when marsupials and birds are breeding. Under contemporary conditions, fires at this time of year are very difficult to control and often become wildfires with consequent risk to life and property — especially as over recent decades we have approved so many more dwellings in and on the fringes of the bush.
There is a torrent of ignorant opinion from self-appointed experts (mainly from outside Victoria, from people who were not there on Saturday (Germaine Greer being the most extreme example!)) hitting the media at the moment, blaming the greenies, the government and local councils for not doing enough hazard reduction burning. I see a grave risk that the intense and widely shared desire to implement measures “so that this can never happen again” (when of course it can and will), will translate into simplistic, one-dimensional approaches that default to non-strategic fuel reduction burning and increased clearing of native vegetation — with perverse and unintended consequences.
No mainstream conservation organisation in Australia is opposed to well-targeted and managed hazard reduction burning. A drying climate and a very dry decade have narrowed the windows within which it can be done successfully, and many communities and people with respiratory problems complain about the smoke (not to mention the wine industry).
The size of wildfires in Victoria over the last decade means that vast areas have been fuel reduced, and yet the events of 7 February still occurred. Professor David Lindenmayer of the ANU (pers comm) points out that: “I worked out of Marysville for 25 years and every year for the past 5 years the outskirts of the town were fuel reduced.”
Kevin Tolhurst from the University of Melbourne (a current fire researcher gathering current data under contemporary conditions, unlike some retired ‘experts’ trotted out by the media) has said that more fuel reduction in the forests would have made little if any difference under Saturday’s conditions. Prof Ross Bradstock from the University of Wollongong and
the Bushfires CRC, has pointed out that the Fire Danger Index (FDI) was over 150 in Melbourne on February 7. The FDI incorporates temperature, wind speed, humidity and a
measure of fuel dryness. It was developed in the 1960s and calibrated on a scale from zero (no fire danger) to 100 (‘Black Friday’ 1939) for both forests and grasslands. Fuel reduction research has mostly involved small-scale experiments at FDIs between 10 and 20. A forest FDI (FFDI) above 50 indicates that, due to fire crowning and spotting behaviour, weather becomes the dominant indicator of fire behaviour, and it becomes impossible to fight a running forest fire front. When eucalypt forests are crowning, fuel reduction at ground level is academic. Recent research suggests that with a drying warming climate we are now seeing unprecedented FDIs, and need to introduce a new fire danger rating above ‘extreme’ called ‘catastrophic’ to more realistically present the dangers associated with days like 7 February.
Graeme Beasley inspects his property damage in the town of Koornalla near ChurchillPhoto: Wayne Taylor
..’More than 5000 people have been left homeless – some permanently – by Victoria’s devastating bushfires.’
[Source: ‘Relief Centres Swamped’, by Britt Smith, 20090209, ^http://www.theage.com.au/national/relief-centres-swamped-20090209-81c1.html]
Much of the recent criticism of Victorian authorities is unfair, or at best premature. The Victorian authorities have more expertise in these sorts of fires than anyone else. It should be remembered that over 300 new fires started in Victoria on 7 February, and only a dozen were not rounded up, which was a great effort. But those 12 major fires, under unprecedented conditions, caused enormous damage and horrible loss of life. None of the 181 deaths announced up to 10 February were firefighters, which is a huge improvement from Ash Wednesday 1983 and Black Friday 1939. Tragically, one volunteer firefighter from Canberra has since been killed by a falling tree, and several others have been injured by falling limbs in trying to secure control lines. But overall, the marked reduction in firefighter casualties from the firefront itself, compared with previous large-scale fires, is commendable. The Victorian inter-agency coordination processes, their large fire management systems, their aerial detection, airborne infra-red fire-mapping systems, their personnel training, and their community education and communication approaches are already up with the best in the world (especially considering their resource constraints compared with say California). This is entirely appropriate given that Victoria is the most dangerous wildfire region anywhere, in its combination of climate, fuel types and fuel loads, topography and population density.
That is not to suggest that all these things and more could not be much better — as the Royal Commission will no doubt reveal. Professor Rod Keenan, Head of the Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science at the University of Melbourne, has written a perceptive piece arguing that we need to rethink Bushfire Governance at the national level, supporting a stronger national approach to bushfire and land management. I agree with Rod on this, as the intersections between fire management and other national priorities such as climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, water yields and biodiversity conservation are acute.
National Army Response – ‘Operation VIC FIRE ASSIST 2009’
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There is a compelling case for national leadership in bushfire policy, education, research,knowledge management, monitoring and evaluation, and building the technical capabilities
we will need in a much more challenging future for fire management in Australia. We have already made a good start with national coordination of aerial fire-fighting through the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC) and in collaboration across States and Territories through AFAC. But more could be done, and the Australian Government could be taking a stronger leadership role beyond just providing funds. These fires, against the background of climate change, herald a new era. We now need to achieve a comparable improvement in preparedness, training, equipment and discipline across the wider community, especially in high-risk bushfire zones. This is a mammoth and systemic education, planning, policy, technical and management challenge. It will inevitably mean allocating more resources to these tasks than we have in the past. The public response to these fires in donating hundreds of millions of dollars has been heart-warming. Governments always seem to be able to find funds for rescue packages and disaster response measures after the event. But our record in investing properly in prevention and risk management is modest at best.
Just as the post-mortems of 1939, 1967 and 1983 also led to fundamental re-thinks and systemic improvements (albeit with patchy implementation), so will the Royal Commission into these fires. The whole planning system should be overhauled, way beyond just building codes and vegetation management. Premier Brumby and his cabinet — and I suspect now Kevin Rudd — appear to understand that business as usual will not do. They also seem to understand the link to climate change in making events such as these (and worse) more likely in future. But they have yet to make the logical jump to the urgency of mitigating climate change, which means setting ambitious targets, and retooling the economy from top to bottom to achieve them.
Bushfire Governance is a National Responsibilty
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I’m reminded of the challenge of running whole farm planning courses for farmers in the mid-1980s, looking at how to redesign farm layout and management to get a more synergistic blend of conservation and production. It was difficult to get farmers to imagine an entirely new farm layout — the fences on the ground had become fences in their heads. The most effective technique I found was to say “imagine that your farm has just been burnt out, and all the fences and infrastructure have been destroyed. Would you put them back exactly as they were before?” Invariably, the response was an emphatic ‘no, of course not’. That simple scenario exercise often unlocked their imagination and strategies for how the farm could be redesigned to better ‘fit’ into the landscape, its soil types, hydrology and land forms, rather than be superimposed on to it in a rectilinear fashion dictated by some colonial surveyor 150 years ago.
This analogy applies equally at the level of the world financial system, and at the level of national, state and local governments in Australia. We have had our bushfire, literally and figuratively. The old structures have been flattened. Let’s not put them back as they were. Let’s take the opportunity to redesign, to rewire, to replumb and to replenish our landscapes,
our economies, and our basic systems for food production, energy, transport, water and housing, to fit new climatic, ecological and economic circumstances.
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Gippsland Bushfire of 1898
bushfires are not new to Australia.
[This article was initially published by Tigerquoll on CanDoBetter.net on 20090703 under the title ‘Victorian Bushfires: CFA ill-prepared and reliant on obsolete firefighting technologies‘].The charred shell of a $350,000 CFA fire-tanker near Belgrave Heights, Dandenongs Victoria in the aftermath of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires
(Photo: Craig Abraham, The Age, 20090225)
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The above fire tanker was fortunately able to protect three firefighters from an out-of-control bushfire as it burnt over them.
But in 1998, a burn-over incident during a bushfire at Linton, near Ballaarat, tragically killing five CFA volunteers.
A report by ABC journalist, Jane Cowan, 20090701, ‘Bushfire lawyers blast CFA’s Rees‘ states that lawyers assisting Victorian State Premier John Brumby’s Royal Commission into the 2009 Victorian Bushfires have in an interim report concluded that the Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA) was ill-prepared for what has been labelled by the media as ‘Black Saturday‘ (7th February 2009).
The lawyers have criticised CFA chief fire officer, Russell Rees, as having been “divorced from fundamental aspects of the responsibilities” as chief officer, including the provision of public warnings and the protection of life and assert that Mr Rees “should have made himself aware of predictions forecasting the path of the fires.”
Criticism has also been made about the reliance by the CFA on obsolete fire fighting technologies. Bushfire consultant assisting the Commission, Tony Cutcliffe, has stated “We still have people running these organisations who are predominantly devoted to a firefighting technology that is no longer in vogue let alone being attuned to the needs of behavioural management and leadership.”
What is most disturbing of all is that hereon the CFA looks to continue business as usual.
The CFA says it has full confidence in Mr Rees and expects him to be at the helm again this summer. Mr Cutcliffe has expressed his concerns that:
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‘Whatever changes are made, as it stands now the same management team that presided over the system which failed to cope on Black Saturday will be required to implement the new regime. If the calamity of what happened to Victoria last summer won’t force an overhaul of firefighting in Australia, what will?
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The CFA’s old-school firefighting culture dies hard:
The CFA remains an emergency response organisation almost totally dependent on a disparate weekend volunteer base (not the fault of the volunteers who are effectively unpaid public servants);
The CFA’s bushfire notification system is wholly reliant on public calls to 000;
The CFA’s fire fighting response system is centred around urban fire trucks that cannot access remote ignitions and so must wait until accessible from a roadside, when the fire is by then often out of control.
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Taking fire trucks into the bush to fight fires is deadly as the above photo shows;
The CFA remains a public authority with carte blanche to allow and deliberately cause immense irreversible damage to Victoria’s remaining ecolgical habitat, yet with no ecological expertise in its management or ranks;
The CFA is grossly underfunded by state and federal governments.
Some questions:
Given that unprecedented extreme weather was forecast and known to the CFA, what commensurate planning, preparation and response did the CFA deploy and when?
What improvements in fire fighting practices have been implemented by the CFA since the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires to avoid a repeat?
Where are the statistics showing the fire fighting performance in respect to each reported ignition, namely:
Elapsed time from estimated ignition time to detection time (CFA becoming aware of ignition)?
Elapsed time from detection time and on site response time (CFA arriving at the fire site/front with fire fighting equipment)?
Elapsed time from response time to suppression time (fire extinguished by CFA)?
These are the three core fire fighting performance metrics.
The 2009 Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission is following its terms of reference in assessing the specific facts and specific causes of the fires and logically as expected is starting to lay blame.
What’s the bet many findings are similar to those of previous bushfire investigations?
If the Royal Commission finds that the current system and structure of Victoria’s (read ‘Australia’s’) volunteer firefighting organisation was at fault, then this is a constructive outcome.
Only at such a legal level will change be forced on the system and culture. Previous internal debrief meetings and investigations (e.g. the 2003 Esplin Enquiry) have managed to have lessons from bushfire disasters ignored and fire fighting practices remain relatively unchanged.
If fire fighting is becoming more effective then how can such tragedies be continuing and growing in scale? How much more 20-20 hindsight is needed by the so-called ‘experienced’ fire fighting leadership before we can observe tangible improvements in fire fighting performance?
It’s all same old same old.
Given the dire inadequacies of this organisation, the culture has forced to become one of absolute defeatism – the only way it believes it can deal with bushfires is to slash and burn as much of the natural burnable landscape as possible, so that there is nothing left to burn. It’s as crackbrained as backburning through Belgrave Heights in order to save Belgrave.
Change cannot be brought to the CFA within the CFA. Change must come from Brumby and Rudd.
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(Ed: While Victorian Premier John Brumby has since been dismissed by election, PM Kevin Rudd currently remains as Australia’s Labor Foreign Minister. But Rudd has been discredited by this tragedy due to the grossly substandard emergency response, recovery, rebuilding and lack of proper emergency investment. His tangible disregard for victims deserves him to be sacked. Rudd has set the foundation for bushfire emergency history to repeat itself, all the while those who suffered still suffer; all the while Australia’s native wildlife are pushed by human ecological abuse and negligence closer to extinction, yet in absence of government care and funding. Australia’s Liberal-Labor governments remain immoral ecological extinctionists, comparable in ecological terms to the Cambodian Khmer Rouge).
This article was initially published by Tigerquoll 20090622 on CanDoBetter.net in the aftermath of the devastating Victorian bushfires that climaxed on 7th February 2009:
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Last ditch huddling together in cars didn’t work(Chum Creek)
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The Victorian Premier Brumby’s Royal Commission into the January-February 2009 bushfires is a mere incident review. If Victoria is to be protected from firestorms in future, it should undertake a root cause analysis, including the numerous past investigations into bushfires, with a view to achieving a cultural shift in rural fire fighting methods, resourcing and emergency management and into ecology management, housing approvals in bushfire prone areas, building design in bushfire prone areas, bush arson criminology and into serious resourcing of rural fire management.
A familiar media icon of Victorian television news for over a decade – he and his family, like those around him, had a right to a safe lifestyle in beautiful rural Victoria
(This editor grew up watching Nine News, as part of our family routine for many years, and I remain still personally affected by his awful tragedy).
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Indeed, given the repeated history of bushfires across Australia and the repeated uncontrolled nature of many of these leading to extensive property damage, the loss of thousands of livestock, widespread ecological destruction, the human lives lost and injuries, and the massive costs incurred every year, the scope of the enquiry should be escalated to a national level.
But the Victorian Commission’s terms of reference focuses on the immediate causes and circumstances of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires. It focuses on the immediate management, response and recovery. This is a start, but the real start occurred in 1939 with the shock of Black Friday. It lead to the Stretton Enquiry, but many large and damaging firestorms have occurred since – so the Stretton Enquiry showed that lessons were either ignored or the application of those lessons were ineffective. The Esplin Inquiry of 2003 identified striking parallels between 1939 and 2002-3 bushfires. Now we have the 2009 Bushfires, but each investigation is disconnected from the previous one, almost as if to intentionally ignore history and any prior lessons learnt. Interstate and overseas, many major bushfires and their subsequent investigations have amassed research, insight and lessons. Why limit the investigation to one event?
Victorian Premier’s complicity in under-preparation, and precious nothing’s been done since
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Incident investigation will uncover causes and flaws and will likely make specific recommendations in the hope of preventing similar incidents. But root cause analysis goes beyond identifying the symptoms of a problem. But the Commission has not started with identifying the problem.
Let’s say that that at the core is the problem of preventing ignitions becoming firestorms.
What are the causes of uncontrolled ignitions in the bush?
Where are they typically lit?
How are ignitions detected by fire authorities?
What is the time lapse between ignition and detection?
What is the time lapse between detection and response and eventual suppression?
Which causes and interventions would mitigate the risk of these ignitions developing into uncontrollable firestorms?
Are the ignition detection tools adequate?
Are the communications tools adequate?
Do we have the right tools and trained personnel in the right places to effectively respond?
Is the entire detection, response and suppression system sufficiently integrated to deal with multiple ignitions in extreme conditions across the State at the same time?
How would this be achieved?
What budget would be required to have such resources and technology in place to achieve this standard?
Is the problem indeed too big for Victoria by itself to adequately deal with and so is the problem in fact a national one?
How would a satisfactory solution be achieved without causing other problems like ecological damage and local wildlife extinctions?
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Then implement the recommendations and scientifically monitor their effectiveness. But the Commission is looking at what caused the specific ignitions, what damage the specific bushfires caused and specific responses. It will conclude what specifically should have been done in these specific incidents. It will lead to a blame game that will solve nothing. Subsequent ignitions if not predicted, detected, responded to and suppressed to prevent firestorms, will likely have different circumstances in different locations.
So how will the problem have been solved by this Royal Commission?
How will the Victorian Royal Commission prevent bushfire history repeating itself?
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What a useless fabricated enquiry, another one in the litany of government rural community betrayal!
Ash Wednesday Bushfires in 1983 – approaching Anglesea on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, Australia
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This article was initially published by Tigerquoll 20090622 on CanDoBetter.net in the aftermath of the devastating Victorian bushfires that climaxed on 7th February 2009, quickly branded by the media as ‘Black Saturday‘:
Ultimate responsibility at the time – Victorian Premier Brumby and Australian Prime Minister Rudd
(and tomorrow is Armistice Day when nearly a hundred years ago people questioned…
‘Ultimate Responsibility‘)
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The Victorian Premier Brumby’s Royal Commission into the January-February 2009 bushfires is a mere incident review. If Victoria is to be protected from firestorms in future, it should undertake a root cause analysis, including the numerous past investigations into bushfires, with a view to achieving a cultural shift in rural fire fighting methods, resourcing and emergency management and into ecology management, housing approvals in bushfire prone areas, building design in bushfire prone areas, bush arson criminology and into serious resourcing of rural fire management.
Indeed, given the repeated history of bushfires across Australia and the repeated uncontrolled nature of many of these leading to extensive property damage, the loss of thousands of livestock, widespread ecological destruction, the human lives lost and injuries, and the massive costs incurred every year, the scope of the enquiry should be escalated to a national level.
But the Victorian Commission’s terms of reference focuses on the immediate causes and circumstances of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires. It focuses on the immediate management, response and recovery. This is a start, but the real start occurred in 1939 with the shock of Black Friday. It lead to the Stretton Enquiry, but many large and damaging firestorms have occurred since – so the Stretton Enquiry showed that lessons were either ignored or the application of those lessons were ineffective. The Esplin Inquiry of 2003 identified striking parallels between 1939 and 2002-3 bushfires. Now we have the 2009 Bushfires, but each investigation is disconnected from the previous one, almost as if to intentionally ignore history and any prior lessons learnt. Interstate and overseas, many major bushfires and their subsequent investigations have amassed research, insight and lessons. Why limit the investigation to one event?
Incident investigation will uncover causes and flaws and will likely make specific recommendations in the hope of preventing similar incidents. But root cause analysis goes beyond identifying the symptoms of a problem. But the Commission has not started with identifying the problem.
Let’s premise that at the core is the problem of preventing ignitions becoming firestorms.
What are the causes of uncontrolled ignitions in the bush.
Where are they typically lit?
How are ignitions detected by fire authorities?
What is the time lapse between ignition and detection?
What is the time lapse between detection and response and eventual suppression?
Which causes and interventions would mitigate the risk of these ignitions developing into uncontrollable firestorms?
Are the ignition detection tools adequate?
Are the communications tools adequate?
Do we have the right tools and trained personnel in the right places to effectively respond?
Is the entire detection, response and suppression system sufficiently integrated to deal with multiple ignitions in extreme conditions across the State at the same time? How would this be achieved?
What budget would be required to have such resources and technology in place to achieve this standard?
Is the problem indeed too big for Victoria by itself to adequately deal with and so is the problem in fact a national one?
How would a satisfactory solution be achieved without causing other problems like ecological damage and local wildlife extinctions?
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Then implement the recommendations and scientifically monitor their effectiveness.
However, the Commission is looking at what caused the specific ignitions, what damage the specific bushfires caused and specific responses. It will conclude what specifically should have been done in these specific incidents. It will lead to a blame game that will solve nothing. Subsequent ignitions if not predicted, detected, responded to and suppressed to prevent firestorms, will likely have different circumstances in different locations. So how will the problem have been solved by this royal commission?
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What about the affected people up in the Bush?
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Horror, shock, helplessness, anger, loss – loved ones, family, next door neighbours, familiar faces gone. Then there’s financial loss, bank issues – sympathy first but then demands, threats and ambivalence. This is whole livelihoods. It is devastation. The initial trauma (community and personal), plus the ongoing trauma (community and personal).
Governments do the obligatory media spin, but as months pass they move on to other priorities. But the people don’t – whether they end up staying or going, the trauma stays.
This was absolutely catastrophic! Catastrophic! No-one can prepare or recover as easy as Government claims. What is ‘moving on’?
This is War Reparations league! A war hit here and ordinary people were simply living their ordinary lives in the bush. Another token bushfire enquiry without bushfire reform is repugnant, ignorant and callous. How will the Victorian Royal Commission prevent bushfire history repeating itself?
If our society could cope before, we may accept fate. But knowing the extreme risk in February 2009 and now, fate is no excuse. It is wrong for government to pursue bushfire management nonchalant business-as-usual in Victoria… in Australia.
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Footnote
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My uncle and aunt lost their family home down at Angelsea during the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires. They weren’t insured. Though they escaped with their lives, they lost everything else. Thereon they were never really quite the same. They became refugees in their home community.
Anglesea Dreaming – a recollection of one’s youth and holidays
Chainsaw-wielding loggers of VicForests are set to target old growth Mountain Ash near Sylvia Creek in the Central Highlands, to Melbourne’s north, east of Kinglake. That an inferno that was Black Saturday in February 2009 ripped through forests in the area around Narbethong, Toolangi and Kinglake matters squat to these woodchip mercenaries.
The Burned Area Emergency Response Report (BAER) commissioned by the Brumby Government after the 2009 bushfires recommended preserving refuge areas such as those in Toolangi for biodiversity recovery.
That the targeted forests have become isolated islands of habitat to rare wildlife matters squat to them. That the forests are home to Victoria’s endangered and disappearing Leadbeater’s possum, the Spotted-Tail Quoll, the Sooty Owl, and Baw Baw frog are but collateral damage to these bastards. “Over half the Leadbeater’s Possum’s forest habitat was destroyed in the Black Saturday bushfires, so every last bit that survives is incredibly precious, and essential to this tiny animals’ survival,” said spokesperson for local group ‘My Environment’ Sarah Rees.
“The criteria the government is using to identify Leadbeater’s Possum habitat are too conservative. We’re talking about Victoria’s wildlife emblem, we should be making sure they multiply and flourish, not simply cling on to the edge of survival.”
VicForests old growth logging is all for a quick buck from woodchip sales to make Reflex Paper. They would sell their daughters for less.
“DSE has confirmed the logging coupe contains old growth trees, even though VicForests and Government Minister Louise Asher insisted last week that it was not old growth forest,” said Wilderness Society forest campaigner Luke Chamberlain.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
As one solution to Australia’s failing governance to mitigate and tackle national disasters (bushfires, storms, floods, drought, earthquakes,etc) I propose the complete overhaul of Australia’s current state-based disparate system. This reform initiative proposes to transform and consolidate the many state-based bushfire and emergency services across Australia and Emergency Management Australia into one standardised national professional body. I propose a new national defence corps be established under new national legislation. The proposed name of that body is to be Australia’s ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘.
The purpose of a ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘ shall be to reach beyond rural fire fighting and to encompass the breadth of all civil emergency fields non-military in nature. The ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘ is to be Australia’s primary and sole central organisation to deal with civil emergencies including national disasters, natural or otherwise. It is to supercede and make redundant the current Emergency Management Australia – which merely co-ordinates state government responses to major civil defence emergencies “when State and Territory resources are inappropriate, exhausted or unavailable.” – [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emergency_Management_Australia&oldid=32590701]
The ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘ is to become a fourth arm of Australia’s defence forces along with and having the equivalent status and ‘defence power’ as the Army, Navy and Air Force, yet be purely non-combative. The ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘ will be an equal partner with our Army, Navy and Air Force, but instead of focusing on national defence against human-based threats, the Civil Emergency Corps will focus on national defence against mainly natural threats.
Under Section 51(vi) of the 1901 Australian Constitution, the clause dealing with ‘‘defence power‘ gives the Commonwealth Parliament the right to legislate with respect to “the naval and military defence of the Commonwealth and of the several States, and the control of the forces to execute and maintain the laws of the Commonwealth“. Just as ‘defence power‘ has allowed the Commonwealth to raise an army and navy, the term was considered broad enough to add the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as a defence power in 1921. Similarly, it is argued that a new ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘ charged with civil defence and natural disaster emergencies fits within the Constitutional definition of ‘defence power‘.
A special national commission should be established by the Australian Government to review and shape the purpose, functional scope, framework, organisation structure and strategies of this new corps. The initial intent is that this Civil Emergency Corps is to be modelled along the lines of the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal National Response Framework (NRF), but tailored to Australia’s specific needs and circumstances and that of the Oceanic region. The design of the organisation will be based on input received from current emergency personnel, emergency experts and from the broader Australian community. Ideas from comparable organisations overseas will also be considered, such as from nations having proven effective national civil defence organisations.
Funding is to be on par, have the same budget process as, the Australian Regular Army. The days of reliance on meat trays, raffles, grants and community fund raising must end. The task is too important for petty funding. Instead, the organisation is to be professionally paid, run in a military structure and to military discipline and precision. Australians in time of need deserve no less. Like the Army it will have core full-time regulars, augmented with a part-time reserve component. It will be initially staffed by the current people already performing emergency service work. Initially the existing infrastructure (buildings, plant and equipment) shall be utilised. Over time the organisation will evolve to coming up to par with the equivalent performance standards as the Army. Its resourcing will be exponentially increased to equip it to properly anticipate, monitor, and respond to any non-military emergency. .
Essential Functions of the Civil Emergency Corps
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To assume all the work of the State Emergency Services, Fire Services and Rescue Agencies
Disaster risk, contingency and mitigation planning – land and maritime
Community Education in Natural Disaster Preparation and Mitigation
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2. Recommended Policy
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To transform and consolidate the many state-based bushfire and emergency services across Australia and Emergency Management Australia into one standardised federal professional body – Australia’s ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘. The ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘ is to be Australia’s primary and sole central organisation to deal with civil emergencies including national disasters, natural or otherwise.
A special national commission to be established by the Australian Government to review and shape the purpose, functional scope, framework, organisation structure and strategies of this new corps. The initial intent is that this Civil Emergency Corps is to be modelled along the lines of the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal National Response Framework (NRF), but tailored to Australia’s specific needs and circumstances. The design of the organisation will be based on input received from current emergency personnel, emergency experts and from the broader Australian community. Ideas from comparable organisations overseas will also be considered, such as from nations having proven effective national civil defence organisations.
This is not an exercise in administrative consolidation. It is a transformation of a disparate, outmoded and under resourced emergency infrastructure into a single centrally co-ordinated non-combat national defence organisation. It is to be a continually learning organisation learning from past mistakes, such as the failings of the management of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires. It is not to be a traditional hierarchical structure, but a programme-based matrix organisation, requiring exceptional leadership skills of its executive.
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3. Recommended Formation and Structure
. Incorporated into Australia’s Defence Context
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Australian Regular Army / Army Reserve
Royal Australian Navy / Navy Reserve
Royal Australian Air Force / Air Force Reserve
Civil Emergency Corps / Civil Emergency Reserve
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Civil Emergency Corp Structure
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In the same way as Australia’s three other corps are configured, the new Civil Emergency Corps is to be comprised of ‘Regulars’ – full-time and professionally paid, as well as ‘Reservists’ who commit on a part-time and on demand basis, who are no-less professionally trained and paid commensurate with time served.
The organisational structure is to be headquartered in Canberra, located strategically next to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, as well has being networked geographically with a ‘State Corps’ for each State and Territory.
Regionally, this new organisation will have ‘Regional Brigades’ and at the local level ‘Local Units’. Each component will have its share of regulars and reservists. The existing infrastructure of the various emergency services agencies would be utilised.
In addition, in order to deal with highly specialised functions, dedicated Corp Specialist Regiments will be established (see proposed list below).
1. National Government Ministry
Minister for Civil Emergency
Deputy Minister for Civil Emergency
Parliamentary Secretary for Civil Emergency
A ‘National Command Centre’ – based in Canberra next to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), for strategic reasons, headed by a ‘Corps General Marshall
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2. State and Territory Corps
Each headed by a ‘Corps Brigadier‘
The organisational structure is to based on a hybrid geographical model of both Fire Brigades and State Emergency Service, decided on a region by region assessment.
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3. Regional Brigades
each headed by a ‘Regional Commander‘
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4. Local Units
each headed by a ‘Unit Captain‘
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The regionalisation of the Civil Emergency Corps is to adopt the similar geographic structure aligned to a hybrid of that of the pre-existing State Emergency Services and Rural Fire Services.
For instance, currently across New South Wales State Emergency Service (SES), NSW is divided into 17 ‘Regions’ based on major river systems.
‘Each of the 226 volunteer units belongs to a Region, which is led by a Region Controller. Region boundaries coincide as nearly as possible with major river systems. Each Region Controller is responsible for the operational control of emergency flood and storm responses, including planning, training, operational support and other functions within their area of control. The Region Headquarters also provides administrative support to the units in its region. The Region Headquarters all have fully functioning Operations Centres and a group of volunteers who help with training, planning, operational and other functions.’ .
[Source: http://www.ses.nsw.gov.au/about/ ]
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Merger and Integration:
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All pre-existing emergency service organisations, with the exception of the ambulance and police services, are to be disbanded and merged and integrated into one national body, the Civil Emergency Corps.
The reason to maintain independence of the police services is due to the police function and role being more closely aligned to law and order than to dealing with civil emergencies. The reason to maintain independence of the ambulance service is due to the ambulance function and role being more closely aligned to hospital and medicare care than to dealing with civil emergencies.
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Nationally:
• Emergency Management Australia
• Care Flight Group
• Australian Volunteer Coast Guard
• St John Ambulance Service . .
NSW Corps:
A merger and integration of the Fire and Rescue NSW, NSW Rural Fire Service, and Community Emergency Services Incorporated. .
Victorian Corps
A merger and integration of the Victorian Fire Brigade, Country Fire Authority and the State Emergency Service. .
Queensland Corps
A merger and integration of the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service, Queensland State Emergency Service and the Queensland Rural Fire Service. .
South Australian Corps
A merger and integration of the South Australian Metroplitan Fire Service, Country Fire Service, and the State Emergency Service. .
ACT Corps
A merger and integration of the ACT Fire Brigade, ACT State Emergency Service and the ACT Rural Fire Service. .
West Australian Corps
A merger and integration of the Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia (which has already merged its emergency service agencies). .
North Australia Corps
A merger and integration of the Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service, Northern Territory Emergency Service, Bushfire Volunteer Brigades, Rescue Co-ordination Centre (Northern Territory Transport Group). .
Tasmanian Corps
A merger and integration of the Tasmanian Fire Service, and the State Emergency Service Tasmania. .
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Corps Specialist Regiments
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• Specialist Regiments shall be established, each having its own part-time payrolled Reserve component. .
‘Evacuation Regiment’
• emergency field transport and logistics to effect evacuation of displaced persons and their personal effects
• assumes basic human needs provision of displaced persons (emergency accommodation, food and clothing, emergency sanitation, emergency childcare
• currently performed by charity groups like The Salvation Army, The Australian Red Cross, St Vincent de Paul Society, Anglicare Australia, Mission Australia, Catholic Mission, and others .
‘Utilities Regiment’
• public utility repair and rebuilding – drinking water, sewage and sanitation, electricity, gas services .
• Corps internal communications including satellite management for monitoring of bushfires and storms, (attached to Army Signals), land phone, mobile/SMS, public broadcast services, internet services, including evacuee/missing persons database and related communications, plus public relations communications .
‘Search and Rescue Regiment’
• assumes land search and rescue functions previously performed by various State Police special units, as well as rescue of trapped people from earthquakes, mines, landslides, etc.
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‘Airborne Regiment’
• Equipped with its own fleet of aircraft and special purpose airfields, this regiment will be regionally based and assume all avaition services including helicopter rescue, fire bombing, airborne evacuation transport, air search and rescue, and air-ambulance. It will integrate the various pre-existing airborne emergency services of each state,namely the NSW Police Rescue Unit, Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service (NSW), CareFlight Group, Search and Rescue Squad (of the Victorian Police), Tasmanian Air Rescue Trust, RACQ CareFlight, Capricorn Helicopter Rescue Service (Rockhampton), Royal Flying Doctor Service.
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‘Maritime Regiment’
• assumes functions previously performed by Coast Guard, including sea search and rescue and vessel salvage functions. It will integrate the various pre-existing maritime emergency services of each state, namely Marine Rescue NSW, Volunteer Marine Rescue (Qld), the South Australian Sea Rescue Squadron, the Volunteer Marine Rescue Western Australia, and Sea Rescue Tasmanian Inc. .
‘Medivac Regiment’
• The risk in times of civil emergency, is that already busy ambulance services become overstretched in being expected to provide the extraordinary levels of emergency medical needs of affected people and communities. This is unacceptable. Not a replacement of the State-based Ambulance Services, The Medivac Regiment will be dedicated to functions currently otherwise performed in times of disaster by State-based Ambulance Services, Royal Flying Doctor Service, Army Medics, St John Ambulance and paramedics, and emergency field medicine. In addition it will provide medical emergency evacuation, hospital transfers, and specialise in proactive disease prevention, containment and vaccinations at times of pandemic and epidemic emergencies.
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‘Community Regiment’
• provides the full range of trauma counselling, psychological and associated mental health services, which will typically extend many months and sometimes years after exposure to a disasterous event .
‘Vet Regiment’
• Specialised livestock and pet recovery, animal sheltering, emergency veterinary services, emergency relief livestock agistment, stock feed provision and distribution .
‘Biosecurity Regiment’
• All biosecurity emergency planning and response to disease outbreaks, pandemics, epidemics, pestilence, plague, national health threats or emergencies, including mass casualty events, communicable disease outbreaks, and quarantine emergency planning and response. . .
Civil Emergency Strategic Partners
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Australian Regular Army – Engineers, Signals (Communications), Transport & Logistics
Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Air Force
Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Australian Government Department of Health and Aging ‚Health Emergency
Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation
State and Federal Governments ‚ Premiers Departments
New Zealand Government ‚ Ministry of Civil Defenc and Emergency Management CentreLink
CSIRO
Bushfire CRC
Seismology Research Centre, Australia
Geoscience Australia
Australian Broadcasting Commission
Department of Community Services (and State equivalents)
Major Supermarket Retailers – Coles, Woolworths, Metcash
Shipping Container company
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Satellite Service Provider – Australian Satellite Communications Pty Ltd,
Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL)
Australian Antarctic Division
Telstra
Qantas
Brambles Shipping
The Salvation Army
The Australian Red Cross
Infrastructure Australia
State Ambulance Services
State Police Services
State Health Agencies
Metcash, Coles, Woolworths
LinFox, Toll Holdings,
Departments of Community Services
CentreLink
Australia Post
State Morgues and Funeral Directors
Business Council of Australia
Small Business Council of Australia
Insurance Council of Australia
and many others.
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Funding
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The funding for such an organization needs to continually be drawn from multiple sources as it does now so as to share the burden, but the revenue needs to be ramped up and applied on a more ‘user-pays’ but means-tested calculation basis, including
Council rates component (indexed according to one’s properties bushfire zoning and house preparedness to mitigate bushfire damage – not how much natural vegetation one may have cleared around one’s property)
State taxes (existing, but with a portion of property stamp duty revenue allocated to this funding)
Federal taxes (existing) and Australia’s annual Defence Budget reined in away from wasteful capital expenditure on extravagant projects like the Joint Strike Fighter towards funding the more pertinent need of civil emergency funding
Property insurance premiums increased (indexed according to one’s properties bushfire zoning and house preparedness to mitigate bushfire damage – not how much natural vegetation one may have cleared around one’s property)
A blanket tax on exotic plants – eg 10% and legislation banning sales of gazetted noxious species with associated fines eg $2000
New legislation to effect a new bushfire levy imposed on property development applications eg 5% of the estimated construction value
New legislation to effect a parental financial liability for children found to have caused bushfire damage – fines mean tested up to $100,000
New legislation to given power to the EPA and local councils to fine people and organizations for illegal damage to native vegetation. The same satellite monitoring system as that used to detect ignitions would be admissible evidence. Fines mean tested up to $100,000
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Can Australia afford this?
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Well can Australia afford not to? Wait until the next disaster and then ask the question again, and again.
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When Australians observe the hundreds of millions of dollars (indeed billions) of taxpayer moneys spent by State and Federal Governments in wasteful projects, the answer is a simple yes, easily. Question the opportunity cost of the following recent examples of government inappropriate spending and waste:
Nov 2010: Prime Minister Gillard donates $500 million to Indonesian Islamic Schools
Jul 2010: A Senate inquiry into the Rudd-Gillard Government’s botched $300 million Green Loans program has confirmed that some groups of assessors hired as part of the program are still owed over $500,000 in fees due to mismanagement and poor administration procedures under the scheme with some assessors blasting the Federal Government for failing to implement proper checks and balances.
Mar 2010: The Rudd Government has recorded an $850 million blow-out in the cost of its household solar power program. Labor had only intended to spend $150 million over five years on solar rebates but instead splurged $1 billion in just 18 months!
Dec 2010: Queensland Premier Bligh committed $1.2 billion into the Tugun Desalination Plant, which has been plagued by problems since it opened last year, will be shut early next year, along with half the $380 million Bundamba treatment plant and the new $313 million plant at Gibson Island. Water infrastructure has cost Queenslanders $9 billion recently and they are entitled to know the money is being spent wisely.
Dec 2010: Queensland Premier Anna Bligh shelved a $192 million project involving carbon capture research. Bligh has said she is determined to make carbon capture storage economically viable and has committed another $50 million of taxpayers money to finding the answer. The Bligh government has already spent $102 million researching cleaner coal technology through the state-owned ZeroGen, a joint state-commonwealth government and industry led-research project for coal-fired power production.
Sep 2010: Victorian Premier Brumby’s Wonthaggi desalination plant will cost Victorians $15.8 billion over the next three decades, departmental figures show, leading the state opposition to accuse the government of hiding the project’s true cost.
And disaster management it is better invested up front in prevention and response, than afterward in relief and recovery.
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Yes, Australia can afford it. Governments need to stop wasting taxpayer money.
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4. Justifications for this Reform Initiative
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Since European colonisation of Australia in 1788, successive natural and unnatural disasters have occurred, yet government preparedness and response has repeatedly fallen well short of the duty and standard expected by the Australian public. The 1939 Black Friday bushfires were perhaps the greatest wake up call to complacent governments, yet since then countless bushfires, storms, floods and other civil emergencies have seen government well behind the eight ball to cope and to exercise its civil responsibility to protect the Australian public. While in 1939, emergency management knowledge, resources, technology and techniques were primitive, in 2011 now, there is no excuse. In bushfires, storms and floods people are continuing to die, houses destroyed and vast areas of natural habitat destroyed. Only myopic denial and lack of political prevent Australian governments at all levels from fulfilling their civic governance responsibilities in civic emergency contingency resourcing and management. It is no longer tolerated for governments to hide behind the veneer of the volunteer involvement to deflect public critisism of the government neglect of civil emergency management. Australia has a litany of disasters through its recent history:
March 1899: more than 400 die in Cyclone Martha at Cape York, far north Queensland.
December 1916: Flood kills 61 at Clermont, Queensland
April 1929: Northern Tasmanian floods kill 44
December 1934: Melbourne floods kill 36 and leave 3000 homeless
March 1935: Cyclone in Broome, West Australia kills 141
February 1955: Hunter Valley floods kills 25 in Singleton and Maitland, NSW
February 1967: Tasmanian bushfires kill 62, most in Hobart
January 1974: Brisbane floods kill 14 (Cyclone Tracy 25,000 made homeless)
December 1989: Earthquake in Newcastle, NSW kills 13
July 1997: Landslide at Thredbo, NSW kills 18
February 2009: Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria kill 173
and many others.
[Source: The Australian newspaper, ‘Summer, season of catastrophe‘, 20110112, p.11]
Current emergency management across Australia remains grossly under-resourced, ill-equipped and typically wholly reliant upon unpaid volunteers and individual community members dong their bit. It is government negligence to the extreme.
The cost of maintaining the status quo of relying upon multiple State-based agencies continues to be in the hundreds of millions dealing with major bushfires each year. Bushfires don’t stop at State borders and invariably each summer, crews cross borders anyway to help out. Each State simply doesn’t have the resources to do an effective job when it comes to major bushfire events, or indeed major natural disasters. So the task become national anyway.
During the cooler winter months, when there a few if any bushfires, those agencies tasked in bushfire management are in the main idle, while at the same time the State Emergency Services are often overwhelmed dealing with storm emergencies. By combining all emergency services (excluding police and ambulance services) into one national body, the combined force will be better trained and resourced to tackle any form of civil emergency any time of year. The resources will be more continuously employed, have greater capacity and be at a greater state of readiness to deal with civil emergencies.
Australian governments at all levels need to stop their ‘too-little-too-late’ reactionary responses to emergency management in Australia . The Australian people, the Australian economy and the Australian natural environment deserve better. Currently, we have disparate grossly underfunded State run groups largely staffed by local volunteers – volunteer rural fire services, volunteer state emergency services, and total dependence upon various charities like the Red Cross and Salvation Army. The responsibility for emergency management throughout Australia has been run on the cheap by successive State and Federal governments since Black Friday of 1939. National Disaster Management is probably the most neglected responsibility of all government services, because to do it right involves long term planning beyond election cycles and costs so much money.
Nationally, Australia has no central organisation that deals with national disasters, natural or otherwise. The job is left to the relevant State Government concerned; somewhat a leftover remnant of colonialism. There is a token agency under the Federal Attorney General’s Department, called Emergency Management Australia, but the name is more impressive than the tasks it performs. In 2005 under the Howard Government, Emergency Management Australia was on paper “tasked with co-ordinating governmental responses to emergency incidents” and with providing training [at Mount Macedon] and policy development, yet “the actual provision of most emergency response in Australia (was)… delivered by State Governments.” [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emergency_Management_Australia&oldid=32590701]. In November 2007 under the Rudd Government, the Emergency Management Australia focus was modified, slightly: “On request, the Australian Government will provide and coordinate physical assistance to the States in the event of a major natural, technological or civil defence emergency. Such physical assistance will be provided when State and Territory resources are inappropriate, exhausted or unavailable.” – and they gave it an acronym ‘COMDISPLAN’ standing for Commonwealth Government Disaster Response Plan. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emergency_Management_Australia&oldid=174306765 ]
That is, in lay terms, the Australian Government will only help in national emergencies when the States can’t handle a public emergency.
Such a bureaucratic attitude is hardly proactive leadership from our wealthy developed nation!
Emergency Management in Australia doesn’t even have a dedicated minister responsible. Instead, the entire responsibility is tagged on to the Federal Attorney General’s Department. Currently the task is being delegated to an ‘Acting’ Attorney-General Brendan O’Connor and shared with Minister for Human Services Tanya Plibersek. It is as if the Australian Government has a head in the sand approach to national emergencies at home, hoping they won’t happen, but when they do, she’ll be right mate! – we’ll fob our way through it as best we can with what’s lying around. What a bloody irresponsible approach to national emergency management! And all the government does is to encourage the thousands of Queensland residents affected by the flooding to lodge a claim for the Australian Government‚ Disaster Recovery Payment ‘AGDRP’ – another acronym!
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) met in Brisbane on 7 December 2009 and agreed to a range of measures to improve Australia’s natural disaster arrangements. COAG recognised “the expected increase to the regularity and severity of natural disasters”, and so agreed to a new whole-of-nation ‚resilience based approach to natural disaster policy and programs.” Under a Natural Disaster Resilience Program, at Federal level we now have Commonwealth funding for disaster mitigation works and support for emergency management will be approximately $110 million over four years. That funding would deliver more effective benefits by being channelled to single national body, rather than spread across multiple duplicated agencies.
The responsibility for proper governance of civil disaster management (contingency planning, mitigation, resourcing and response) by Australian governments span not just within Australia’s shores but as a wealthy nation and an international citizen, Australia owes a duty of care to countries in its region. Last September, Australia’s closest neighbour, New Zealand, suffered a devastating earthquake in Christchurch, and we don’t have to travel far back to recall the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that devastated coastal Sumatra, Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Currently, Australia is responding with emergency management personnel, equipment and funding to the Japanese Government following the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant emergencies. That response would be all the more effective, co-ordinated and resourced if under professional umbrella Civil Emergency Corps.
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5. Benefits of this Reform Initiative
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Only with a national, military style and fully funded organisation, can Australia expect to adequately prepare, resource and deal with national civil emergencies. The current State-based volunteer-dependent system does not have a hope of getting access to real-time satellite monitoring of the nation for ignitions, tsunamis, storms and the like, nor access to standby airborne fleet to effect military speed responses. Instead, the current system relies on an outmoded and slow truck-centric ‘mum-and-dad’ army whom, while well-intentionedand dedicated, are grossly inadequate to meet the scale of the challenge.
The increased prevalence of climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters in our region, yet Australia’s readiness continues to lag decades behind the requisite emergency management need. Only a complete transformation of Australia’s emergency management to a military-speed national defence force has a chance of adequately preparing Australia for inevitable future natural disasers and civil emergencies.
Collectively across all the existing emergency organisations, Australia already spends billions in emergency management, but is not coping and is under-performing against 21st century triple bottom line expectations
Cumulatively, Australia already spends billions in emergency management, but most of the cost is in response due to being under-prepared. In natural disaster management, mitigation and prevention where possible are better than the cost of poor response. It is cheaper economically and on lives.
A professional organisation, on the payroll is fairer to the workers involved. Government reliance on community volunteers is exploitative and the standards can never collectively match full paid professionals with state of the art resourcing. Taxes are paid by the people so that government will protect them in both military and civil defence.
A single national Corps is better positioned than multiple disjointed organisations to prepare for and respond to the ever increasing array of national disasters, but such an organisation would retain the critical advantage of regional and local personnel and resources. Economies of scale and efficiency gains from removing duplication in administration and overheads would come from a single Corps. But a key condition must be that any job losses would attract full retrenchment payouts.
Many secondary school leavers could be readily recruited into a non-combative Civil Emergency Corps service for limited services, than are attracted to the traditional three combative military corps.
Amalgamating the many disparate organisations into one will enable national standardisation of policies, procedures and techniques as well as enable best practice in effectiveness and efficiency.
By having a national, multi-skilled, professionally trained and properly resourced Civil Emergency Corps, Australia will be better placed to assist and respond to natural disasters across Australia and throughout the Oceanic region.
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Proposed mascot of Australia’s overdue ‘Civil Emergency Corps’ :
Australia’s magnificent wedge-tailed eagle should be the mascot of this new organisation. It is uniquely Australian, a highly respected native bird and the eagle traditionally is a symbol for guardianship, protection, power, strength, courage, wisdom and grace. All these qualities quite apt for a Civil Emergency Corps. An appropriate motto is ‘defending our community’ – or perhaps ‘vigilant, capable, immediate‘ but instead of in English or translated back to Latin, more appropriate that it be in an Australian Aboriginal language.
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[Footnote: This article has been prepared based upon material in a previous article on this website published 1st January 2011 entitled ‘National Disasters Best for Capable Army‘].
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Further Reading:
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[1] ‘Nat MPs push levy for disaster fund’, by Joe Kelly, The Australian, January 05, 2011,
[2] ‘PM Julia Gillard to help flood-hit Queensland weather storm’, by Sean Parnell and Jared Owens, The Australian, 4th January 2011, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pm-julia-gillard-to-help-flood-hit-queensland-weather-storm/comments-fn59niix-1225981305357
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[3] ‘Premier visits NSW towns in flood’s path’ , ABC, 6th January 2011,
Australia has a history of national disasters, which our detached apathetic politicians repeatedly fail to plan for.Rockhampton Flood of 1918
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~auscqfha/floods.htm
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The Central Queensland (CQ) Family History Association Inc. knows and respects the history of Central Queensland. It has well documented the flooding of the Fitzroy River through Rockhampton.
‘The Fitzroy River and its tributaries drain a vast expanse of country. Captain Cook, in the Endeavour, sailed along the eastern coast. On May 26, 1770, anchored in and named Keppel Bay, and Flinders, in the Investigator, anchored in the Bay, ascended Sea Hill, named Broadsound and found The Narrows, but failed to discover the great river coming down from the far interior of the continent. The streams that feed the Fitzroy flow through some of the richest grazing and agricultural lands in Queensland. Fresh water continues to some five miles (8 Km) past Yaamba, the old northern crossing 21 miles (33.8 Km) by road and 34 miles (54.7 Km.) by river from Rockhampton. Here tidal influence commences.’ ‘The country drained by the Fitzroy River is estimated to be 55,666 square miles (144,174 square Km.) of which 54,800 square miles (141,932 square Km.) is upstream from Rockhampton and because it drains an immense area it must, of course, carry enormous quantities of water at times.’
[Source: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~auscqfha/floods.htm ]
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Indeed, Rockhampton has flooded many times throughout its history, mainly through the Wet Season.
And the 2011 flood is expected to peak at 9.4 metres – not as ‘unprecedented‘ as the politicians would have us believe.
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Bligh Expects Queensland Flood Emergency to Exceed $5 Billion
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Rockhampton Flood @ 9.2m in 2011
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Rockhampton is again under flood along with many townships of central Queensland.
Today [5th Jan 2011] Queensland Premier Anna Bligh estimated that the total economic impact of the flood damage to Queensland could be $5 billion. Julia Gillard has previously said the Federal Government would be providing assistance that would run into the hundreds of millions to assist the recovery process. Clearly that falls well short of the $5 billion minimum estimated by the Queensland Premier.
And now the politicians are promising, pontificating and filibustering. The political party that herald’s itself as representative of rural Australians, the National Party, has called for a national disaster fund set up and that it be contributed by a household insurance levy. NSW Nationals Senator John Williams said Senator Boswell’s insurance levy should be replaced by a levy on council rates to catch all landowners.
Senator Williams has called for a debate around a national “emergency fund” of up to $10 billion that would help in the event of a flood or other disaster like drought, fire or earthquake.
“Bring on the debate, the money has to come from somewhere. We can’t just pluck it off trees,” he said. “I think a national fund would be a great step forward so the money is there when a fellow Australian is in need of it. There will obviously be some impact on the Australian economy but I would think the Australian economy is large enough and robust enough, as it does almost every year, to be able to cope with these sort of natural disasters,” he said. [1]
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So serious is this round of disasters in Queensland, Australia’s Prime Minister ‘Julia Gillard ‘has ordered more government funds be diverted to flood-ravaged Queensland in a bid to prevent the state slipping into a long economic slump.’
‘In what may become Australia’s largest and most costly rebuilding operation, clean-up grants of up to $25,000, along with low-interest loans, were offered by the Prime Minister yesterday in addition to the commonwealth’s normal emergency relief payments. Production has almost ground to a halt in the coal industry, while early assessments of Queensland’s agriculture sector have put the cost of the floods at more than $1 billion in lost production.
Authorities also worry that receding floodwaters will reveal unexpected damage to infrastructure, raising the political pressure on all levels of government to chart a clear course to recovery.’ [2]
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National Disaster Management Grossly Neglected in Australia
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But yet again, after another natural disaster politicians cry to escape all implications of government culpability and so distract public attention by claim of ‘act of God‘ and ‘unprecedented‘ and calling for Australians to chip in and dig deep. Instead of confidently relying upon years of government investment in contingency planning and infrastructure, politicians become shy and distractingly appeal for ‘community spirit’. But now what choice does the community have now that a disaster is upon them? They only have community spirit, despite the bleeding guv’ment.
The floods have also badly affected New South Wales, the Gascoyne and western Victoria. This has included the NSW border town of Goodooga ‘which lies directly in the path of the Queensland floodwaters and is expected to be isolated by the weekend and could remain cut off for the next six weeks.’ The NSW Premier Kristina Keneally has said that evacuations are already underway. The NSW government has declared another eight local government areas to be natural disaster areas, bringing the total to 59. [3]
Also currently occurring is the severe flooding of the Gascoyne Region including the town of Carnarvon, 900km north of Perth. The State Fire and Emergency Services Authority is similarly advising residents to watch for changes in water levels and be ready to evacuate.’ [4] On 19th December 2010, the river had reached 7.7 metres and the president of the Carnarvon Shire, Dudley Masien described the flood the worst he had witnessed. “The hotel roof is only just peaking out of the water“, he said. [AAP 20101220].
Meanwhile in South Australia, over the 2011 New Year period temperatures had been forecast to be 40 degrees Celsius threatening “catastrophic conditions” for bushfire. Luckily an early change averted this risk, but even so several major fires have occurred across South Australia in the past few days including grass fires at Kangarilla, Salisbury East and Keith. The SA Country Fire Service has warned of very high danger ratings remain in place for the North-West Pastoral, North-East Pastoral, West Coast, Eastern Eyre Peninsula, Flinders, Mid-North Yorke Peninsula and the Riverland. [5]
Seriously, Australian governments at all levels need to stop their ‘too-little-too-late’ reactionary responses to emergency management in Australia . The Australian people, the Australian economy and the Australian natural environment deserve better. Currently, we have disparate grossly underfunded State run groups largely staffed by local volunteers – volunteer rural fire services, volunteer state emergency services, and total dependence upon various charities like the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
The responsibility for emergency management throughout Australia has been run on the cheap by successive State and Federal governments since Black Friday of 1939. National Disaster Management is probably the most neglected responsibility of all government services, because to do it right involves long term planning beyond election cycles and costs so much money.
Since Victoria’s catastrophic and multiple Black Saturday bushfires about this time two years ago, Australia has emerged from decades of prolonged drought across many states; as well as experienced wild damaging storms; and bushfires this summer in South Australia and WA (again deliberately lit). Australia has copped cyclonic conditions across the north and now flooding rains throughout central and southern Queensland and into northern regions of New South Wales. Each new year that comes the risk of damaging weather is not likely to wane.
Last September, Australia’s closest neighbour, New Zealand, suffered a devastating earthquake in Christchurch, and we don’t have to travel far back to recall the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that devastated coastal Sumatra, Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Australia has a litany of disasters through its recent history:
March 1899: more than 400 die in Cyclone Martha at Cape York, far north Queensland.
December 1916: Flood kills 61 at Clermont, Queensland
April 1929: Northern Tasmanian floods kill 44
December 1934: Melbourne floods kill 36 and leave 3000 homeless
March 1935: Cyclone in Broome, West Australia kills 141
February 1955: Hunter Valley floods kills 25 in Singleton and Maitland, NSW
February 1967: Tasmanian bushfires kill 62, most in Hobart
January 1974: Brisbane floods kill 14 (Cyclone Tracy 25,000 made homeless)
December 1989: Earthquake in Newcastle, NSW kills 13
July 1997: Landslide at Thredbo, NSW kills 18
February 2009: Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria kill 173
and many others.
[Source: The Australian newspaper, ‘Summer, season of catastrophe’, 20110112, p.11]
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What is Australia doing about National Disaster Management on its own doorstep and to prepare its poorer neighbours in the South West Pacific? Australia as a rich wealthy nation has a moral responsibility to harbour its close exposed neighbours.
But what disaster monitoring and preparation strategy does Australian have for weather research & monitoring, disaster contingency planning, investment in defensive infrastructure to ensure community resilience, damage mitigation, natural disaster response training?
Where is Australian political leadership in national emergency management?
Australia has a recurring pattern of natural disasters. Simple searches on Google reveal that weather history in Australia is only repeating itself. It’s not new. It’s not ‘unprecedented‘ as government politicians try to excuse their leader’s unpreparedness, or is it disinterest?
Classically in Australian literature, Dorothea Mackellar’s Australian epic poem ‘My Country’ prevails and I borrow the following pertinent excerpt, which is prone to regurgitated reference by the media:
“I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror —
The wide brown land for me!”
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But bear in mind Mackellar wrote that poem back in 1904. She was insightful! Colonial Australia struggling out of raw survival in a retched landscape and through someone’s noble sense of ‘Federation’, Australians will have felt the natural onslaught of the ‘terror’ of natural disasters.
But surely a hundred years hence with the time and luxury of foreign lifestyle, our irresponsible governments do not deserve pardon for their gross public ineptitude.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has come out declaring it was well aware of the impending torrential downpour from the current La Ni√±a event and of the likelihood of extensive flooding pending for south east Queensland. Historically, La Ni√±a has always caused high flooding cross SE Queensland big river regions. Hello! So where were the Queensland Government’s risk assessment, contingency planning, infrastructure investment and community preparation to lessen the likely disaster scenarios for the big river communities? Is Bligh a joke talking?
We’re now in the 21st Century, not Mackellar’s era. Australians in all states and territories have a public right to expect that our Australian national government will dutifully properly prepare, manage and mitigate the impacts of national disasters. It is all about good governance. What do we pay taxes for if it is not for times like this?
While many of us who can take out general insurance, those insurance companies can only respond to natural disasters in a financial sense but after the disaster. But it is not the job of insurance companies to manage disaster; it is without equivocation the responsibility of government and quite simply that is why we must pay our taxes throughout our lives. Government civic infrastructure is still not in place to mitigate known historic recurring disaster risk and so since the risk remains so the proportional premium increases. Consequently, many thousands of Australians are in a Catch 22. They are not eligible or cannot afford the requisite insurance to cover their property against natural disaster because the premiums are prohibitively expensive, but they can’t sell and relocate because their property values will have plummeted.
Over the decades thousands of Australians have had their building approved by government on land with a history of natural disaster – flooding, bushfire and drought for instance. If that is not reckless enough, governments at all levels continue to renege on disaster risk mitigation and defensive infrastructure to withstand known disaster types. So in the event of these recurring natural disasters, look at the record of the Australian Government’s contingency planning and performance protecting the Australian public – their lives, property, and to Australia’s most vulnerable our wildlife and its natural habitat? Thousands of hectares of forests have been cleared across the Brisbane River that naturally would have absorbed much of the deluge. Now bare hills and hard surfaces and many thousands of storm water drains, the rains are not absorbed. Housing development continues to be approved in bush settings that are undefendable in the event of a bushfire. Agricultural approval is provided for cropping on marginal lands with repeated histories of drought and/or flood.
Unlike back in 1904, Australia in 2011 is supposedly a wealthy, technologically advanced society. Australia easily has the financial and resource capability to be disaster prepared at national level. But failure to contingency plan condemns Australians to ‘planning to fail‘. When disaster hits Australians are on their own! When a government lets down its people it has lost all legitimacy.
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So what is ‘Emergency Management Australia’ ?
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Nationally, Australia has no central organisation that deals with national disasters, natural or otherwise. The job is left to the relevant State Government concerned; somewhat a leftover remnant of colonialism.
There is a token agency under the Federal Attorney General’s Department, called Emergency Management Australia [compulsorily abbreviated to an acronym like most government agencies to ‘EMA‘, but the name is more impressive than the tasks it performs.
In 2005 under the Howard Government, Emergency Management Australia was on paper “tasked with co-ordinating governmental responses to emergency incidents” and with providing training [at Mount Macedon] and policy development, yet “the actual provision of most emergency response in Australia (was)… delivered by State Governments.”
In November 2007 under the Rudd Government, the Emergency Management Australia focus was modified, slightly:
“On request, the Australian Government will provide and coordinate physical assistance to the States in the event of a major natural, technological or civil defence emergency. Such physical assistance will be provided when State and Territory resources are inappropriate, exhausted or unavailable.” – and they gave it an acronym ‘COMDISPLAN‘ standing for Commonwealth Government Disaster Response Plan.
That is, in lay terms, the Australian Government will only help in national emergencies when the States can’t handle a public emergency.
Such a bureaucratic attitude is hardly proactive leadership from our wealthy developed nation!
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In recent years, the Rudd/Gillard Government renamed the organisation Emergency Management in Australia (visit the site http://www.ema.gov.au/), which seems to have been a way of playing down its national leadership role to one of being simply an informational resource. Again, this is divulging responsibility for national emergencies to the next tier of government. Imagine if the states and territories did the same and divulged such responsibility down to local councils?
Emergency Management in Australia doesn’t even have a dedicated minister responsible. Instead, the entire responsibility is tagged on to the Federal Attorney General’s Department. Currently the task is being delegated to an ‘Acting’ Attorney-General Brendan O‚ÄôConnor and shared with Minister for Human Services Tanya Plibersek. It is as if the Australian Government has a head in the sand approach to national emergencies at home, hoping they won’t happen, but when they do, she’ll be right mate! – we’ll fob our way through it as best we can with what’s lying around.
What a bloody irresponsible approach to national emergency management! And all the government does is to encourage the thousands of Queensland residents affected by the flooding to lodge a claim for the Australian Government‚Äôs Disaster Recovery Payment ‘AGDRP‘ – another acronym!
Other reactionary responses from Canberra are currently listed on the EMA website as ‘Flood-affected residents urged to apply for assistance’, ‘Extra disaster assistance for flood-affected communities in Queensland’, a ‘Boost for Territory Disaster Resilience’, a ‘Boost for Tasmanian disaster resilience’, ‘Commonwealth response to the final report of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission’, and when in doubt, ring Triple Zero (000). How reassuring!
Perhaps one initiative positively worth noting is that the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) met in Brisbane on 7 December 2009 and agreed to a range of measures to improve Australia‚Äôs natural disaster arrangements. COAG recognised “the expected increase to the regularity and severity of natural disasters“, and so agreed to a new whole-of-nation ‚Äòresilience‚Äô based approach to natural disaster policy and programs.” Under a Natural Disaster Resilience Program, at Federal level we are now supposed to have Commonwealth funding for disaster mitigation works and support for emergency management will be approximately $110 million over four years.
Well at least it’s a step in the right direction – adopting a ‘whole-of-nation’ approach is long overdue. Yet the current funding scope again is classically ‘too-little-too-late‘. The politicians pontificate. How much of this $110 million will be required for the 2010 Queensland Floods disaster? How much reached the victims of the 2009 Black Saturday disaster across Victoria?
What inevitably happens is that when the disaster situation gets beyond the local volunteers and State and Federal Governments are in a lather not being able to cope, the standard response is to call in the Army? As if the Army knows better than the experienced volunteers?
But for a national government to resort to calling in the Army is a public confession that the government’s emergency management plan has utterly failed the people. At this very point government raises the white flag of failure in national emergency management. One’s government is suddenly incompetent.
And just like what the Federal Government did in Victoria after Black Saturday’s shemozzle of a disaster management, this is just what they are again doing now in Queensland. Enter Major General Mick Slater, poor bugger!
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Army deployed to manage the 2011 Queensland Floods Recovery
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On 5th January 2011, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh announced that Major General Mick Slater would lead the state’s flood recovery taskforce, as more than
200,000 Australians in 40 communities across Queensland have been impacted in some way by the floods. The Army will be tasked to rebuild houses, economies, regional communities and infrastructure. It is estimated that about 1,200 homes across Queensland have been inundated by floodwaters thus far, with another 10,700 homes affected and 4,000 residents evacuated, and the flood bill could be well above $5 billion.
But as a freshman to national disaster management, incoming Army officer Slater has revealed that despite his Army experience has not prepared him for this challenge:
…’one of his first duties will be to talk to Major General Peter Cosgrove, who headed the Innisfail rebuilding project after Cyclone Larry in 2006.
“I believe he’s returning from overseas today and I hope to speak to him tonight. This is early days for me. I’ve just been appointed to this job, but I do understand that time is of the essence as we progress down the recovery mode. However, it is very important that we get it right the first time. “If we rush in and do patch-up jobs… then we will have got it wrong. We must get it right from the start and that will take some time.”
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[Source: ‘Army general to head flood recovery taskforce’, ABC, 5th January 2011, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/05/3106898.htm ]
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Reading between the lines, it is clear that the Army is not trained, skilled, experienced or prepared to deal with national disasters. The Army is traditionally trained to fight battles against a human enemy. It has recently evolved to deal with peacekeeping missions, but national disasters remain outside its core skill set.
Premier Bligh has recognised:
“This is a large and complex effort. It will not happen quickly. It will require all of us working together across different levels of government.”
And so once again, instead if a single national professional response, a hotch-potch of agencies is thrown together from Federal and State Governments. Volunteers and charities will play a key role and asking the public for charity has already started.
Once again a desperate government declares ineptness and phones a friend in Canberra – ‘please send in the Army and make our politicians look like we’re taking decisive action what now there’s a good chap, meet you at the club for afters’.
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Australian Army Not Equipped for National Disasters
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CRITICAL QUESTIONS: What does the Australian Army know about national disaster management? More that the State Emergency Services or Fire Brigades? I don’t think so. But the Army has resources, and that it why it is brought in. So why don’t the emergency agencies have the resources in the first place? Emergency agencies do emergencies. The Army fights wars.
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Let’s look at the record…
Army Deployed to Manage the Recovery after the 2009 Victorian Bushfire Disaster
Between 10th February and 14th March 2009, Australian Prime Minister Rudd and Victoria‚Äôs Premier Brumby agreed to have the Australian Army Reserve deployed to assist the multiple emergency services in the immediate aftermath ‘mopping up’ of the Victorian bushfire emergency, dubbed by the media as ‘Black Saturday‘. The Army set up Joint Task Force 662 based to the north of Melbourne under the command of Brigadier Mike Arnold.
Under ‘Operation VIC FIRE ASSIST’, Joint Task Force 662 involved about 450 Army Reservists in a recovery support role – mainly a construction and an engineering regiment with assistance from the School of Armour and a Combat Services Support Battalion. Specifically, ‘Search Task Group’ was set up comprising around 160 Army Reserve soldiers to assist police locate human remains with perimeter security around many townships and residents destroyed including the two Kinglakes, Strathewen, Marysville, and Flowerdale. An RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft was deployed to provide aerial imagery to assist in the identification of residences affected by the fires.
Army support included delivering food parcels, and putting tents and facilities into place to help accommodate, feed and support people left homeless.
An Engineer Support Group, comprising around 70 personnel, five army bulldozers, a front-end loader and a grader, working with the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment and Country Fire Authority, to assist with improving fire breaks and containment lines, and clearing roads of vegetation and debris throughout the many bushfire affected areas.
Somewhat outside core duties, Defence personnel from Northern Command and Townsville launch bushfire undertook direct fundraising collecting donations at the gates to Larrakeyah Barracks, Northern Territory and Lavarack Barracks, Townsville. On Friday 13th February five RAAF members from Combat Support Unit Edinburgh also conducted a collection in aid of the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal at the main and south gates of RAAF Base Edinburgh.
So the Army involvement in dealing with the national disaster of ‘Black Saturday‘, was effectively a post-disaster mop up operation assisting police and providing civil engineering support and relief effort. The Army was not deployed at the outset of the known bushfire risk on Monday 3rd January 2009 when weather forecast was extreme and fires had already started. Nor was the Army deployed during the disaster period itself – Saturday 9th through Monday 11th January. This is due to the Army not being best trained to deal with such emergencies and the false expectation that the volunteer Country Fire Authority were.
The emergency conditions were such:
“The majority of the fires ignited and spread on a day of some of the worst bushfire-weather conditions ever recorded. Temperatures in the mid to high 40s (¬∞C, approx. 110‚Äì120¬∞F) and wind speeds in excess of 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph), precipitated by an intense heat wave, and almost two months of little or no rain fanned the fires over large distances and areas. “
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires]
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Army Deployed to Manage the Response and Recovery after Cyclone Larry in 2006
Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry made landfall in Far North Queensland as a Category 4 storm crossing the coast near Innisfail at dawn on 20 March 2006. With wind gusts up to 240kph Cyclone Larry was regarded as the most powerful cyclone to affect Queensland in almost a century. In addition to the high winds, the cyclone moved inland and developed into a tropical depression causing protracted torrential rains and extensive over the following week.
The wind and flooding damage extended north to Cairns and the Atherton Tablelands and as far west as Mount Isa. After landfall, Tropical Cyclone Larry moved over north-western Queensland on 22‚Äì23 March, with heavy rain falls across the region. Most of the damage occurred in the Innisfail coastal region where 80% of buildings were damaged, power and phone lines were downed, water was contaminated and the region’s main agricultural crop, bananas, was decimated. The economic damage bill came to around A$1 billion in damage, and there was one fatality.
The usual array of disparate organisations attended the immediate emergency response including the standard local emergency services (fire brigades, ambulance and police) as well as local volunteer fire brigades (Thuringowa) and unpaid State Emergency Service volunteers. Perhaps unlike other states, the umbrella organization Emergency Management Queensland initially led and coordinated the disaster management (response and recovery) including SES, Emergency Service Units, and EMQ Helicopter Rescue.
Local councils were handed authority to enforce mandatory evacuations once Queensland Premier Peter Beattie declared Larry a ‘disaster situation’. Desperately though, even local prisoners who ‘could be trusted’ were considered for recovery and clean up work-gangs, then around 150 tradesmen from around Australia arrived in Innisfail within days to repair houses, schools and public buildings.
The Australian Army was also deployed early. Within hours of the cyclonic winds subsiding, the nearby Townsville-based 3rd Brigade and Cairns-based 51st Battalion were deployed as well as the Far North Queensland Regiment. Three UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were reserved for rescue and logistical support. A Combat Services Support Battalion was set up to manage the disaster relief effort based at Innisfail Showgrounds to provide basic food, water, shelter and sanitary needs to evacuated residents. Onsite health care, environmental advice, fresh food and purified water (as well as testing local supplies), tarpaulins, bath and shower facilities, and up to 500 beds were provided.
The Navy and Air Force were also deployed including a CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopter, one Seahawk helicopter, three Navy Balikpapan class LCH Landing Craft, two Caribou aircraft, two C-130 Hercules, and several LARC-V amphibious 4WD vehicles.
By 23rd March, three days after the cyclone hit, Prime Minister John Howard and Premier Beatty appointed former Chief of the Australian Defence Force, General Peter Cosgrove, to take charge of recovery efforts labelled the ‘Cyclone Larry Taskforce‘. One quick decision made by Cosgrove was to call for an economic assessment by state and federal governments, and specified a moratorium on businesses’ debt repayments to banks for 3 months. (An outside the Army square type of thinking).
Previously as a Major General in the Army, Cosgrove had successfully managed the 1999-2000 complex UN INTERFET peacekeeping taskforce in East Timor dealing with post-war humanitarian and security crisis. He was credited with commanding thousands of personnel from many countries and completing a successful mission to transition the country to relative stability.
[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERFET]
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This experience had given Cosgrove disaster management skills beyond traditional Army combat roles, and clearly had well prepared him to lead the Cyclone Larry Taskforce. But Cosgrove’s peacekeeping civil emergency experience in a complex environment singled him out as the best person to lead the management of a national disaster in Australia. His success ought to serve as a model for future emergency management planning.
Yet Cosgrove’s experience is atypical of the Australian Army’s broader experiences. The Army’s role and experience in national disasters has been purely responsive and supportive. The main contributions by the Army in national disasters has been using Army equipment and military training to try to help a civil emergency. Following desperate orders from the Prime Minister of the day, the Army responds the best it can with what it has got in a situation it is not expertly trained or resourced to do professionally. The Army’s role in emergency management is not strategic, national nor involved in risk assessment, contingency planning nor leadership of the emergency response. But it should be.
The Australian Regular Army and its volunteer Army Reservists are tasked for traditional military combat, not for the new emerging role of international peacekeeping, nor for managing civil unrest, nor for anti-terrorism, nor for natural and national disaster management. Yet recent world events and trends point to such roles becoming more important and likely than traditional military combat. So the role of the Army, its capabilities and its culture need to change to better meet Australia’s true ‘defence’ needs in the broader 21sst Century context. The Army’s 20th Century traditional military combat role belongs to the 20th Century.
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Irresponsible to Expect State-based Volunteers to Manage National Disasters
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Tropical cyclones are not new in northern Queensland nor indeed across northern Australia. They invariably occur every Wet Season generally between the months of November and April and each year only varies in their intensity. This author experienced Cyclone Joy back in 1990 while living in Cairns. The need for a national disaster management organisation probably dates back to Cyclone Tracy of Christmas 1974 which flattened Darwin.
Australian natural history is one of recurring natural disasters. Current flooding along the Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales is again affecting the town of Gundagai, but since Australian history is poorly taught these days, few will be aware that a major flood back in 1852 wiped out the original town site of 71 buildings, and 89 of the town’s 250 inhabitants perished.
Bushfires, severe storms and cyclones, prolonged droughts, flooding rains, and even earthquakes have frequented the landscape, almost annually. With climate change apparent, however caused, there is every expectation from climate science that extremes of weather in Australia, around the world and in our region, will not lessen but more probably will increase both in frequency and severity. New forms of natural disaster may also occur in future such as tsunamis, landslide (recall Thredbo 1997), storm surge, even possible tornado or tsunami, a volcanic eruption from our north or plague and pestilence. National disasters affecting Australia and our region may also not only be naturally caused, such as a major bridge collapse, major dam collapse, major gas explosion and given ongoing tensions and terrorist events pervading our now global society, new forms of national disaster may loom.
While the 1939 ‘Black Friday’ bushfires in Victoria killed 71 people, the accompanying heat wave – which triggered the blazes – claimed 438 lives and yet remains largely unacknowledged. With climate change, a recurrence is almost certain.
Is Australia prepared to cope, manage and mitigate the effects of national disasters? Is the current emergency management framework centred on State-based and local volunteers adequate to the task?
In localised low grade emergencies, the current system generally copes well. But when it comes to national disasters like Cyclone Larry, Black Saturday and the 2011 Queensland Floods, the answer is clearly ‘no’. The test is, do most Australians believe that the emergency authorities in each case were sufficiently prepared and resourced and adequately responded? Do most Australians believe that the impacts of these national disasters could have been considerably mitigated by better risk assessment, contingency planning, the immediacy and appropriateness of the response and co-ordination of recovery?
Such questions go the core of Australia’s national security and to the role and expectation of government to protect its people and assets. The concept of ‘national security‘ needs to extend beyond the narrow military sense to encompassing defence against all forms of adverse impact to our society, economy and environment. National security also extends to Australia’s immediate region; since to ignore national disasters of our neighbouring nations would be not only immoral but likely have spillover effects on Australian eventually.
So what to do about the problem of recurring national disasters?
Government urban planning, human settlement approvals and investment in civic infrastructure to properly protect its citizens from the impacts of national disasters, and the funding of general and life insurance are interrelated key socio-economic issues that will likely come to the fore as communities recognise history repeating itself and governments are found wanting – but they are a focus is for another article.
The contention in this article is not to criticise the work of emergency service volunteers and professionals of the many organisations that get involved, but rather to highlight that the framework and resources in which they operate is woefully inadequate. Volunteers must feel like pawns in a loosely run reactive system, but culturally they are condemned if they dare criticise.
Yet the repeated evidence is that Australia’s current emergency management framework fails the delivery and performance expectations of Australians in our wealthy and advanced society. Look at the records since the first national disaster of the 1939 Black Friday bushfires! Below in the Further Reading section, a number of online references provide links to the many national disasters throughout Australian history. Natural history is repeating itself, but regrettable so is the laissez faire, even ‘head-in-the sand’ attitude of successive Australian governments to avoid serious investment and planning in emergency management for national disasters.
National disasters are costing Australian lives, communities, economies and environments. The full triple-bottom-line costs (direct and indirect) cumulatively reach the billions almost annually. The cost has to be paid in one way or another and often it is in the form of economic loss, decline in rural society and environmental degradation. Instead of governments investing billions up front to mitigate the damage and costs, governments are forking out afterwards anyway and Australian morality is tweaked to donate in order to make up the funding shortfall. The old adage of ‘prevention being better than the cure‘ holds so true here, but the solution seems beyond the short term narrow thinking of our political leaders.
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‘So serious is this round of disasters in Queensland the Prime Minister ‘Julia Gillard has ordered more government funds be diverted to flood-ravaged Queensland in a bid to prevent the state slipping into a long economic slump.’
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In what may become Australia’s largest and most costly rebuilding operation, clean-up grants of up to $25,000, along with low-interest loans, were offered by the Prime Minister yesterday in addition to the commonwealth’s normal emergency relief payments. Production has almost ground to a halt in the coal industry, while early assessments of Queensland’s agriculture sector have put the cost of the floods at more than $1 billion in lost production.’
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[Source: ‘PM Julia Gillard to help flood-hit Queensland weather storm‘, by Sean Parnell and Jared Owens, The Australian, 4th January 2011. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pm-julia-gillard-to-help-flood-hit-queensland-weather-storm/comments-fn59niix-1225981305357 ]
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“Surely it’s time for Julia Gillard to stop seeing the Queensland floods as a series of media opportunities and start showing some practical leadership. She does not appear to have had the truly national implications of this disaster made clear to her.”
[Source: David Williams, Frewville, SA, Letter to the Editor, The Australian, 20110112, p13)
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Full Costs of National Disasters Many Times Greater than Government Investment in its Volunteer Emergency Management Model
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http://on-walkabout.com/tag/bushfires/
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Economic Cost of National Disasters of Living Memory
In terms of direct economic damage alone, in Australian dollars the Queensland Bligh Government has estimated the cost of the current 2011 Queensland Floods to exceed $5 Billion. The economic damages bill for the 2009 Victorian Bushfires exceeded $2 billion. The economic cost of the 2006 Cyclone Larry was in excess of $1.5 billion. The 2003 Canberra Bushfires insurance cost came to $250 million. The 1991-95 drought across in north-eastern New South Wales and much of Queensland cost the economy around $5 billion.
In 1990, over one million square kilometres of Queensland and New South Wales (and a smaller area of Victoria) were flooded in April 1990. The towns of Nyngan and Charleville were the worst affected with around 2,000 homes inundated. Six people were killed and around 60 were injured.
The insurance claims payouts from the 1983 Ash Wednesday Bushfires for Victoria and South Australia combined were $1.3 billion (2007 adjusted terms). The preceding four-year drought across south-eastern Australia (1979-1983) cost the economy around $7 billion mainly in agricultural losses.
In January 1974, the weakening Cyclone Wanda brought heavy rainfall to Brisbane and many parts of south-eastern Queensland and northern New South Wales. One third of Brisbane’s city centre and 17 suburbs were severely flooded. Fourteen people died and over 300 were injured. Fifty-six homes were washed away and 1,600 were submerged. At Christmas 1974 Cyclone Tracy killed 65 people and caused over 600 injuries in Darwin and 70% of all houses had serious structural failure. The total damage bill was around $800 million (1974 $s). In 1970 Tropical Cyclone Ada caused severe damage to resorts on the Whitsunday Islands, Queensland. Fourteen people were killed and the damage bill was estimated at $390 million.
Many other national disasters have occurred in Australia as well as in neighbouring countries. The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami claimed more than 150,000 people dead or missing and millions more were homeless in 11 countries, making it perhaps the most destructive tsunami in history. An estimate by the World Bank and Indonesian government put the total bill for the destruction of property and businesses at more than US$4.4 billion.
Many minor emergencies that occur each year particularly involving storms and bushfires would add to the aggregate costs of these major events.
So a broad brush stroke estimate of the direct economic costs alone of national disasters affecting Australia would average in the range of between $2 billion and $5 billion per year. This excludes the social costs of people experiencing trauma and losing loved ones and livelihoods as well as the unknown environmental costs which should be measured and included and disclosed by the Australian Government so that the cost truth of national disasters is know to the Australian public. Without triple bottom line measurement, the true scale of the problem remains hidden and the ability to problem solve and to make cost effective and cost benefit investment decisions is greatly diminished.
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Disaster Compensation
So in the current instance involving the 2011 Queensland Floods, Prime Minister Gillard has promised a $25,000 grant to each flood-affected property owner and $15,000 to those similarly affected in the flooded Gascoyne Region of Western Australia. Assumedly, flood-affected property owners in northern New South Wales will be similarly compensated. Under Queensland’s Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA) the State and Federal Governments share the compensation costs and include other Disaster Relief Measures such as providing Counter Disaster Operations and a Personal Hardship Assistance Scheme (to alleviate personal hardship), an Associations Relief Assistance Scheme, Restoration of Public Assets, Concessional Loans to Primary Producers, Freight Subsidies to Primary Producers, and Concessional Loans to Small Businesses.
But the financial compensation offered by the Australian government varies with each national disaster and the aggregate cost information is not readily available online, perhaps intentionally. In the main, each state government sets up a range of compensation funds on a disaster event basis. The Australian Government provides a website Disaster Assist that summarises what compensation is available for a given disaster event, usually with references to CentreLink and back to the relevant state government. Visit: http://www.disasterassist.gov.au/www/disasterassist/disasterassist.nsf/
In the case of the 2011 Queensland Floods disaster, an Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment rate is $1,000 per eligible adult and $400 per child.
“Claims for this assistance can be lodged at Centrelink until 4 July 2011 as application for the payment is available for a period of up to six months.”
Identified Disasters on the website are listed as follows:
Current Disaster Assistance
* Queensland Floods – December 2010
* Financial assistance for flooding and severe weather events November – December 2010
* NSW Flooding – October 2010
* South East Queensland Flooding – October 2010
* New South Wales Weather Event – September 2010
* Victorian Flooding – September 2010
* Victorian Bushfires – January/February 2009
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Previous Disasters
* Victorian Storms – March 2010
* Queensland Floods – March 2010
* WA bushfires December 2009
* Mid-North Coast Flooding – November 2009
* Samoa Tsunami – September 2009
* Human Swine Influenza (H1N1) Outbreak 2009
* New South Wales Floods – March 2009
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Annual Funding in Australian Emergency Management
On 12th May 2009, the Rudd Federal Government issued a media release entitled ‘Improving Disaster Resilience‘ as part of the Federal Budget 2009-2010. It stated:
‘The Rudd Government will invest $79.3 million to strengthen efforts to prepare for and combat major natural disasters.
A comprehensive ‘Disaster Resilience Australia Package’ will integrate a number of existing emergency management grant programs, providing the flexibility to effectively meet the requirements of local communities threatened by disaster. The additional funding will be part of this new package.
…The package will integrate the current Bushfire Mitigation Program (BMP), Natural Disaster Mitigation Program (NDMP), and the National Emergency
Volunteer Support Fund (NEVSF). The funding will:
support disaster mitigation works including flood levees and fire breaks
assist Local Government meet its emergency management responsibilities
support the work of volunteers in emergency management
build partnerships with business and community groups to improve their ability to respond to emergencies.
…In addition, the Commonwealth will also provide more than $12.8 million over the next four years to assist States and Territories lease additional fire fighting aircraft for longer periods during bushfire seasons.
Aircraft will be leased through the cooperative National Aerial Firefighting Arrangements (NAFA) and will help individual States and Territories access a range of specialised aircraft that would otherwise be out of reach.
“Aerial firefighting has emerged as a valuable tool in the fight against bushfires and the national arrangements have proven to be an efficient, collaborative approach that shares the cost of these specialised assets,” Mr McClelland said.
This additional funding brings the Government’s total contribution to the National Aerial Firefighting Arrangements to $14 million per year from 2009-2010.
Following recommendations of the 2008 Homeland and Border Security Review, the Government will also establish new briefing facilities and establish an enhanced Government Coordination Centre to support decision-making in the event of a national crisis or major natural disaster.’
[Source: Australian Government – Attorney General’s Department]
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On 8th June 2010, the New South Wales Keneally Government announced it would invest $972 million in emergency services across NSW, including the NSW Fire Brigade, NSW Rural Fire Service and NSW State Emergency Services.
The NSW Emergency Services Minister, Mr Whan states:
“Our emergency services are our first line of defence against storms, floods, tsunami, fires and other emergencies and it is vital that they have the personnel, facilities and resources they need to protect communities around NSW.”
“…Over the past two years, our SES volunteers have responded to a string of emergencies, including major floods in Northern NSW, the Central West and Far West.
“Given the predicted impacts of climate change, this workload is expected to increase in coming years and it is important that the SES is ready to face the challenges ahead.”
The Budget highlights for the emergency services were listed as follows:
NSW Fire Brigades (professionally paid)
The NSW Fire Brigades 2010/11 budget is $637 million. Spending includes:
* $18 million for more than 35 new fire engines and specialised vehicles
* $8.4 million for firefighting and counter terrorism plant and equipment
* $10 million for Cabramatta and renovated fire stations and training facilities
* $2.5 million for Community Fire Units
* $1.3 million for a Workplace Conduct and Investigation Unit
. NSW Rural Fire Service (largely unpaid volunteers)
The Rural Fire Fighting Fund for 2010/11 is $220.4 million. Spending includes:
* $32.2 million for about 200 bush fire tankers
* $16 million for new and renovated stations and fire control centres, including installing water tanks
* More than $17 million for bush fire mitigation, including $6.7 million for works crews
* $7.8 million for aerial firefighting resources
. NSW State Emergency Service (largely unpaid volunteers)
The State Emergency Service budget for 2010/11 is $64.1 million. Spending includes:
* $2 million to assist with the cost of about 60 emergency response vehicles
* $1.4 million for rescue equipment, including $600,000 for about 20 floodboats
* $1.4 million for communication and paging systems
* $930,000 towards the cost of upgrading unit headquarters around NSW
[Source: http://www.nswfb.nsw.gov.au/news.php?news=1656 ]
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The division of emergency services management by the State of NSW into three separate governments agencies, of which only the urban-based fire brigade is fully professionally paid, is typical of the other Australian states and territories. NSW is the most populous state in Australia and so has the greatest taxation revenue with which to fund its public services such as emergency services. An actual annual aggregate figure of the combined capital and recurrent expenditure on emergencies services across Australia would be welcomed and should be disclosed on the Australian Government’s website.
But for a quick comparison, let’s assume that the annual aggregate investment by governments at all levels across Australia, including that of local councils is in the range of $3 billion to $4 billion per year. The investment is almost on par with the economic cost outlay of Australia’s national disasters. It is important to recognise that the funding cost is separate from the disaster economic cost, and that the socio-environmental costs are excluded.
So Australia’s total economic spend on national disasters and civic emergencies probably averages close to A$10 billion per year.
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A Case for Disaster Management to be ‘professionally nationalised’ across Australia.
Why are national disasters causing such massive impact on Australia’s environment, society and economy?
Is the damage caused by natural disasters impossible to mitigate (a fatalistic acceptance), or can more be done to mitigate their damage to the environment, society and economy?
Does Australia have a history of natural disasters and are any of the recent ones socalled ‘unprecedented‘ or are they just a repeat of what has gone before and even less severe than previously?
Who is responsible for planning and mitigating the impact of national disasters when they do occur?
Is not national disaster management as vital a function as military defence?
Is the current framework of multiple disjointed independent State and locally based organisations the most effective and efficient structure to do the job?
What if Australia’s Defence Force had the same framework and organisational structure as current emergency management? Could Australia’s Defence Force perform the same as it currently does? Why not?
How is current disaster contingency planning and response performance measured and are the measures appropriate to quantifying the desired standards of performance?
Is the current disaster contingency planning and response performance acceptable to the Australian community?
How short of ideal is the current performance?
Why is the current emergency management response not able to mitigate the impact to an acceptable level?
How do Australia’s emergency management operations measure up against world best practice?
What countries have world best practice emergency management?
Does the funding structure facilitate or inhibit the capacity of the emergency planning and response?
Are grants and subsidies an appropriate revenue source for such a vital service?
Ought funding be guaranteed as it is with the Defence Forces?
What are the alternatives to Australia’s current disaster contingency planning and response framework?
Do other countries have a proven success record of disaster contingency planning and response, which Australia could learn from and adapt?
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United States: Federal Emergency Management Agency
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Probably the global best practice structure currently for dealing with national disaster management (from risk assessment through reconstruction phasing) exists not surprisingly with the United States of America. Try searching elsewhere and frankly, the US is hard to beat.
The United States National Response Framework (NRF) is part of the National Strategy for Homeland Security that presents the guiding principles enabling all levels of domestic response partners to prepare for and provide a unified national response to disasters and emergencies.
Until 1979,the United States had no comprehensive plan for federal emergency response. Then President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order creating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which consolidated the emergency response duties from multiple agencies across the country that each had disjointed emergency operational plans. National legislation was enacted in 1988 to effectively nationalise Federal response to disasters. Under the National Contingency Plan, multiple organisations were united to deal with disaster preparedness and response.
In 1992, US President Bill Clinton appointed James Lee Witt as the head of FEMA, who substantially changed FEMA to adopt an all-hazards approach to emergency planning. Clinton elevated Witt to a cabinet-level position, giving the Director access to the President. So for the first time, a national disaster management organisation had a National Response Plan and reported directly to the head of the US government – the President.
Since then, following the 2001 September 11 terrorist attacks, the United States thrust disaster management to the forefront of national priority for obvious reasons and it is due to this that the United States probably more than any other country, bar perhaps Israel, has a world leading disaster management structure today. Since 2003, the Department of Homeland Security has absorbed FEMA and since 2008, the National Response Plan has been replaced by the National Response Framework.
The United States National Response Framework (NRF) is part of the National Strategy for Homeland Security that presents the guiding principles enabling all levels of domestic response partners to prepare for and provide a unified national response to disasters and emergencies. Building on the existing National Incident Management System (NIMS) as well as Incident Command System (ICS) standardization, the NRF’s coordinating structures are always in effect for implementation at any level and at any time for local, state, and national emergency or disaster response.
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NRF five key principles
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Engaged partnership means that leaders at all levels collaborate to develop shared response goals and align capabilities. This collaboration is designed to prevent any level from being overwhelmed in times of crisis.
Tiered response refers to the efficient management of incidents, so that such incidents are handled at the lowest possible jurisdictional level and supported by additional capabilities only when needed.
Scalable, flexible, and adaptable operational capabilities are implemented as incidents change in size, scope, and complexity, so that the response to an incident or complex of incidents adapts to meet the requirements under ICS/NIMS management by objectives. The ICS/NIMS resources of various formally-defined resource types are requested, assigned and deployed as needed, then demobilized when available and incident deployment is not longer necessary.
Unity of effort through unified command refers to the ICS/NIMS respect for each participating organization’s chain of command with an emphasis on seamless coordination across jurisdictions in support of common objectives. This seamless coordination is guided by the “Plain English” communication protocol between ICS/NIMS command structures and assigned resources to coordinate response operations among multiple jurisdictions that may be joined at an incident complex.
Readiness to Act: “It is our collective duty to provide the best response possible. From individuals, households, and communities to local, tribal, State, and Federal governments, national response depends on our readiness to act.”
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‘NRF CORE’
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Roles and responsibilities at the individual, organizational and other private sector as well as local, state, and federal government levels
Response actions
Staffing and organization
Planning and the National Preparedness Architecture
NRF implementation, Resource Center, and other supporting documents incorporated by reference
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NRF ANNEXES
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* ESF #1 – Transportation
* ESF #2 – Communications
* ESF #3 – Public Works and Engineering
* ESF #4 – Firefighting
* ESF #5 -Emergency Management
* ESF #6 – Mass Care, Emergency Assistance, Housing, and Human Services
* ESF #7 – Logistics Management and Resource Support
* ESF #8 – Public Health and Medical Services
* ESF #9 – Search and Rescue
* ESF #10 – Oil and Hazardous Materials Response
* ESF #11 – Agriculture and Natural Resources
* ESF #12 – Energy
* ESF #13 – Public Safety and Security
* ESF #14 – Long-Term Community Recovery
* ESF #15 – External Affairs
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NRF SUPPORT ANNEXES:
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* Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR)
* Financial Management
* International Coordination
* Private-Sector Coordination
* Public Affairs
* Tribal Relations
* Volunteer and Donations Management
* Worker Safety and Health
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NRF INCIDENT ANNEXES:
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* Incident Annex Introduction
* Biological Incident
* Catastrophic Incident
* Cyber Incident
* Food and Agriculture Incident
* Mass Evacuation Incident
* Nuclear/Radiological Incident
* Terrorism Incident Law Enforcement and Investigation
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Proposed New Defence Corps: Australia’s ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘
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As one solution to Australia’s failing governance of national disasters, I propose the complete overhaul of Australia’s current state-based and volunteer based disparate organisations, by consolidating, nationalising and professionalising them all into one. I propose a new national defence corps be established under new national legislation – Australia’s ‘Civil Emergency Corps‘. This Corp would be an equal partner with our Army, Navy and Air Force, but instead of focusing on national defence against human-based threats, the Civil Emergency Corps will focus on national defence against mainly natural threats.
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A special national commission should be established by the Australian Government to review and shape the purpose, functional scope, framework, organisation structure and strategies of this new corps. The initial intent is that this Civil Emergency Corps is to be modelled along the lines of the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal National Response Framework (NRF), but tailored to Australia’s specific needs and circumstances. The design of the organisation will be based on input received from current emergency personnel, emergency experts and from the broader Australian community. Ideas from comparable organisations overseas will also be considered, such as from nations having proven effective national civil defence organisations.
Funding is to be on par and have the same budget process as the Australian Regular Army. No more raffles, grants and fund raising. The organisation would be professionally paid, run in a military structure and discipline. Like the Army it would have core full-time regulars and a part-time reserve component. It would be initially staffed by the current people already performing emergency service work. Over time the organisation will evolve to coming up to par with the equivalent performance standards as the Army. It’s resourcing would be exponentially increased to equip it to being a national effective fighting force to deal with national emergencies, properly.
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Essential Functions of the Civil Emergency Corps
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All the work of the State Emergency Services, Fire and Rescue Agencies
Disaster Risk, Contingency, Mitigation Planning – from local to national and indeed regional scale
Community Education in Natural Disaster Preparation and Mitigation
Post-disaster review an analysis and recommendations for future best practice and preparation to the Federal Government
Ongoing national disaster research input
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Mascot
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Australia’s magnificent wedge-tailed eagle should be the mascot of this new organisation. It is uniquely Australian, a highly respected native bird and the eagle traditionally is a symbol for guardianship, protection, power, strength, courage, wisdom and grace. All these qualities quite apt for a Civil Emergency Corps. An appropriate motto is ‘defending our community‘ – but instead of in English or translated back to Latin, better in Australian Aboriginal.
4. Civil Emergency Corps / Civil Emergency Reserve
State Corps
Regional Brigades
Local Units
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National Government Ministry
Minister for Civil Emergency
Deputy Minister for Civil Emergency
Parliamentary Secretary for Civil Emergency
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Organisational Structure
In the same way as Australia’s three other corps are configured, the new Civil Emergency Corps is to be comprised of ‘Regulars‘ – full-time and professionally paid, as well as ‘Reservists‘, who commit on a part-time on demand basis, who are professionally trained and paid commensurate on time served.
The organisational structure is to geographically-based into a respective ‘State Corps‘ for each State and Territory, then into ‘Regional Brigades‘ and then at local level into ‘Local Units‘. Each component will have its share of regulars and reservists. The existing infrastructure of the various emergency services agencies would be utilised.
In addition, in order to deal with highly specialised functions, dedicated Corp Specialist Regiments will be established (see proposed list below).
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A ‘National Command Centre’
headed by the Corps General Marshall
based in Canberra next to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), for strategic reasons
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State & Territory Corps
each headed by a ‘Corp Brigadier’
organisation structure based on a hybrid geographical model of both Fire Brigades and State Emergency Service, decided on a region by region assessment
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Regional Brigades
each headed by a ‘Regional Commander’
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Local Units
each headed by a ‘Unit Captain’
Note: Currently, in the New South Wales State Emergency Service (SES), NSW is divided into 17 ‘Regions’ based on major river systems.
‘Each of the 226 volunteer units belongs to a Region, which is led by a Region Controller. Region boundaries coincide as nearly as possible with major river systems. Each Region Controller is responsible for the operational control of emergency flood and storm responses, including planning, training, operational support and other functions within their area of control. The Region Headquarters also provides administrative support to the units in its region. The Region Headquarters all have fully functioning Operations Centres and a group of volunteers who help with training, planning, operational and other functions.’
Merger and Integration of the following national organisations into the new Civil Emergency Corps:
Emergency Management Australia
Care Flight Group
Australian Volunteer Coast Guard
St John Ambulance Service
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NSW Corps
A merger and integration of the Fire and Rescue NSW, NSW Rural Fire Service, NSW Police Rescue Unit, Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service (NSW), CareFlight Group, Marine Rescue NSW, Community Emergency Services Incorporated
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Victorian Corps
A merger and integration of the Victorian Fire Brigade, Country Fire Authority, State Emergency Service, Search and Rescue Squad (of the Victorian Police).
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Queensland Corps
A merger and integration of the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service, Queensland State Emergency Service and Volunteer Marine Rescue, Queensland Rural Fire Service, RACQ CareFlight, Capricorn Helicopter Rescue Service (Rockhampton), Royal Flying Doctor Service, Volunteer Marine Rescue Association of Queensland.
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South Australian Corps
A merger and integration of the South Australian Metroplitan Fire Service, Country Fire Service, State Emergency Service, South Australian Sea Rescue Squadron.
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ACT Corps
A merger and integration of the ACT Fire Brigade, ACT State Emergency Service, ACT Rural Fire Service.
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West Australian Corps
A merger and integration of the Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia (which has already merged its emergency service agencies), and the Volunteer Marine Rescue Western Australia.
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Northern Territory Corps
A merger and integration of the Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service, Northern Territory Emergency Service, Bushfire Volunteer Brigades, Rescue Co-ordination Centre (Northern Territory Transport Group).
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Tasmanian Corps
A merger and integration of the Tasmanian Fire Service, State Emergency Service Tasmania, Tasmanian Air Rescue Trust, Sea Rescue Tasmanian Inc.
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Corps Specialist Regiments
Each specialist regiment shall have its own part-time payrolled Reserve component.
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‘Evacuation Regiment’
emergency field transport and logistics to effect evacuation of people and their personal effects
assumes basic human needs provision of displaced persons (emergency accommodation, food and clothing, emergency sanitation, emergency childcare
currently performed by charity groups like The Salvation Army, The Australian Red Cross, St Vincent de Paul Society, Anglicare Australia, Mission Australia, Catholic Mission, and others
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‘Utilities Regiment’
public utility repair and rebuilding – drinking water, sewage and sanitation, electricity, gas services
Corps internal communications including satellite, (attached to Army Signals), plus public communications – land phone, mobile/SMS, public broadcast services, internet services, including evacuee/missing persons database and related communications
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‘Search and Rescue Regiment’
assumes landsearch and rescue functions previously performed by various State Police special units
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‘Maritime Regiment’
assumes functions previously performed by Coast Guard, including sea search and rescue and vessel salvage functions
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‘Medivac Regiment’
assumes functions previously performed in times of disaster by State-based Ambulance Services, Royal Flying Doctior Service, Army Medics, St John Ambulance and paramedics, air-ambulance, field medicine and medical emergency evacuation, hospital transfers, disease prevention, containment and vaccinations
Not a replacement of the State-based Ambulance Services
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‘Community Regiment’
provides the full range of trauma counselling, psychological and associated mental health services
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‘Vet Regiment’
Specialised livestock and pet recovery, animal sheltering, emergency veterinary services, emergency relief livestock agistment, stock feed provision and distribution
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‘Biosecurity Regiment’
All biosecurity emergency planning and response to disease outbreaks, pandemics, epidemics, pestilence, plague, national health threats or emergencies, including mass casualty events, communicable disease outbreaks, and quarantine emergency planning and response.
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Civic Emergency Strategic Partners
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Australian Regular Army
Engineering
Signals (Communications)
Logistics/Transport
Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Air Force
Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Australian Government Department of health and Aging – Health Emergency
Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation
State and Federal Governments – Premiers Departments
New Zealand Government – Ministry of Civil Defenc and Emergency Management CentreLink
CSIRO
Bushfire CRC
Seismology Research Centre, Australia
Geoscience Australia
Australian Broadcasting Commission
Department of Community Services (and State equivalents)
Major Supermarket Retailers – Coles, Woolworths, Metcash
Shipping Container company
Satellite Service Provider – Australian Satellite Communications Pty Ltd,
Collectively across all the existing emergency organisations, Australia already spends billions in emergency management, but is not coping and is under-performing against 21st century triple bottom line expectations
Cumulatively, Australia already spends billions in emergency management, but most of the cost is in response due to being underprepared. Prevention is better than the cure – cheaper economically and on lives.
A professional organisation, on the payroll is fairer to the workers involved. Government reliance on community volunteers is exploitative and the standards can never collectively match full paid professionals with state of the art resourcing. Taxes are paid by the people so that government will protect them in both military and civil defence.
A single national Corps is better positioned than multiple disjointed organisations to prepare for and respond to the ever increasing array of national disasters, but such an organisation would retain the critical advantage of regional and local personnel and resources. Economies of scale and efficiency gains from removing duplication in administration and overheads would come from a single Corps. But a key condition must be that any job losses would attract full retrenchment payouts.
Many secondary school leavers could be readily recruited into a Civil Emergency Corps service for limited services, than are attracted to the traditional three military corps.
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Can Australia afford it?
Can Australia afford not to? Wait until the next disaster and then ask the question again?
When Australians observe the hundreds of millions of dollars (indeed billions) of taxpayer moneys spent by State and Federal Governments in wasteful projects, the answer is a simple yes, easily. Question the opportunity cost of the following recent examples of government inappropriate spending and waste:
Prime Minister Gillard donates $500 million to Indonesian Islamic Schools [^ November 2010]
Senate inquiry into the Rudd-Gillard Government’s botched $300 million Green Loans program has confirmed that some groups of assessors hired as part of the program are still owed over $500,000 in fees due to mismanagement and poor administration procedures under the scheme with some assessors blasting the Federal Government for failing to implement proper checks and balances. [^July 2010]
The Rudd Government has recorded an $850 million blow-out in the cost of its household solar power program. Labor had only intended to spend $150 million over five years on solar rebates but instead splurged $1 billion in just 18 months! [^March 2010]
Queensland Premier Bligh committed $1.2 billion into the Tugun Desalination Plant, which has been plagued by problems since it opened last year, will be shut early next year, along with half the $380 million Bundamba treatment plant and the new $313 million plant at Gibson Island. Water infrastructure has cost Queenslanders $9 billion recently and they are entitled to know the money is being spent wisely. [^December 2010]
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh shelved a $192 million project involving carbon capture research. Bligh has said she is determined to make carbon capture storage economically viable and has committed another $50 million of taxpayers money to finding the answer. The Bligh government has already spent $102 million researching cleaner coal technology through the state-owned ZeroGen, a joint state-commonwealth government and industry led-research project for coal-fired power production. [^December 2010]
Victorian Premier Brumby’s Wonthaggi desalination plant will cost Victorians $15.8 billion over the next three decades, departmental figures show, leading the state opposition to accuse the government of hiding the project’s true cost. [^Sept 2010]
And disaster management it is better invested up front in prevention and response, than afterward in relief and recovery.
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Further Reading:
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[1] ‘Reform 03 ‘Formation of a Civil Emergency Corps‘, >Link
[2] ‘Nat MPs push levy for disaster fund‘, by Joe Kelly, The Australian, January 05, 2011,
[3] ‘PM Julia Gillard to help flood-hit Queensland weather storm‘, by Sean Parnell and Jared Owens, The Australian, 4th January 2011, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pm-julia-gillard-to-help-flood-hit-queensland-weather-storm/comments-fn59niix-1225981305357
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[4] ‘Premier visits NSW towns in flood’s path’ , ABC, 6th January 2011, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/06/3107563.htm.
[5] ‘Carnarvon on flood warning but levees hold’, 20th December 2010, ABC
Emergency Management Australia (EMA) is an AustralianFederal Government Agency tasked with coordinating governmental responses to emergency incidents. EMA currently sits within the Federal Attorney General’s Department.
Australian state and territory authorities have a constitutional responsibility, within their boundaries, for coordinating and planning for the response to disasters and civil emergencies. When the total resources (government, community and commercial) of an affected state or territory cannot reasonably cope with the needs of the situation, the state or territory government can seek assistance from the Australian Government.
On request, the Australian Government will provide and coordinate physical assistance to the States in the event of a major natural, technological or civil defence emergency. Such physical assistance will be provided when State and Territory resources are inappropriate, exhausted or unavailable. The Australian Government accepts responsibility and prepares plans for providing Commonwealth physical resources in response to such requests. Emergency Management Australia (EMA) is nominated as the agency responsible for planning and coordinating Commonwealth physical assistance to the states and territories under the Commonwealth Government Disaster Response Plan (COMDISPLAN).
The Commonwealth Government Disaster Response Plan (COMDISPLAN) provides the framework for addressing state and territory requests for Commonwealth physical assistance arising from any type of emergency. COMDISPLAN is normally activated when Commonwealth assistance for emergency response or short-term recovery is requested or likely to be requested.
After the 2009 restructure of the Federal Attorney-General’s Department, responsibility for the Australian Emergency Management Institute (formerly the Emergency Management Australia Institute) was taken over by the National Security Capability Development Division. The Institute conducts extensive emergency management education and training courses from the vocational education and training (VET) Public Safety Training Package. The programs delivered include eleven competencies which make up the Advanced Diploma in Public Safety (Emergency Management) including Emergency Coordination Centre Management, Exercise Management, Undertake Emergency Planning and Recovery Management as well as three nationally-accredited short courses: Risk-based Land Use Planning, Business Continuity Management and Emergency Management for Local Government. Program participants are drawn from the range of the emergency response agencies: fire, police, ambulance, State Emergency Service (SES) as well as local, state and Federal Government; NGOs such as the Red Cross and representatives from the private sector deemed “critical infrastructure” (i.e. water/power/transport).
Emergency Management involves the plans, structures and arrangements which are established to bring together the normal endeavours of government, voluntary and private agencies in a comprehensive and coordinated way to deal with the whole spectrum of emergency needs including prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.
2009 Churchill Fire on Black Saturday – deliberately lit at 1:30pm
2009 Victorian Bushfires – Overview Map
Delburn Bushfire 30th January 2009 from NASA satellite
The 2009 Delburn Bushfire
A CFA firefighter runs out hose on Piggery Road at Boolarra 2nd February 2009.
(Photo by Greg Cahir)
Erickson S-64 Air-Crane Helitanker (N179AC)
2009 Bendigo Fire Map Overview
2009 Churchill Fire Map Overview
The very start of Churchill Bushfire
Photo taken looking south from Hunt Street, Morwell
‘Composition: vertical-panorama of the smoke from the Churchill Fires that have jumped containment lines near me’
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Plantations being incinerated in Churchill Bushfire
[Source: Hancock Watch, ^http://hancockwatch.nfshost.com/docs/09feb.htm]
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Brendan Sokaluk
Not the smartest bush arsonist, but then could he be?
Ignition Points of the 2009 Churchill Bushfire
[Source: ‘Brendan Sokaluk – the boy who played with fire’, by Patrick Carlyon, Herald Sun, 20120321, ^http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/true-crime-scene/brendan-sokaluk-the-boy-who-played-with-fire/story-fnat7jnn-1226305557238]
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Armageddon aftermath of Sokaluk’s 2009 Churchill Bushfire Arson – he’ll be out in just 14 years
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