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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2793 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

government. These are issues that we are quite happy to talk to the community about, and we have been doing just that.

However, because of the lack of action resulting from the December 2001 bushfires, the buck for this disaster in January 2003 stops with the Labor government. It was the Labor government which was complacent through 2002 about the deterioration of bushfire preparations in 2002, in the wake of the December 2001 wake-up call. The drought year of 2002 strongly indicated that a bad season was coming.

On 13 November 2002, based on appeals put to me by the community, people far more experienced than me who knew that I was then the shadow emergencies minister, I put to this house, "the combination of drought, fuel on the ground and weather spells extreme danger". I was calling for general community and school bushfire education. Yet again the government ignored all the warnings, not only from me, but from the community in general. I was simply representing a community concern. Mr Speaker, rural and experienced bushfire fighters were ignored to the extreme throughout 2002.

Indeed, what we have seen for a number of years is that the experienced bushfire fighters, the families who have lived in this district for decades, have been marginalised and pushed to one side by other people who are simply not experienced and technically qualified enough to be able to undertake the strategic planning that this district needs.

On 4 February 2003, just 16 days after 500 homes and four lives were lost, the Chief Minister said on 2CN about the inquiry that was going to be established, "It'll be open, it'll be public, it'll be conducted freely, and frankly and fearlessly. This Government has no desire to hide anything. I don't want to have anything hidden."(Extension of time granted.)

Well, Chief Minister, you must give both the Assembly and the community answers to these questions in your quest for free, frank and fearless discussion, questions such as this: why were the fires of 8, 9 and 10 January 2003 not extinguished or contained before they spread to disastrous extremes? The outcome does not matter but let's talk about it, let's put it on the table and understand exactly why they were not contained.

Second, why did the government not issue any substantial warnings to the public in the three days leading up to 18 January 2003? With respect, why was the worst case scenario planning alerting the vulnerable suburbs not undertaken? Why was the gravity of the fire and weather intelligence on 16 and 17 January 2003, indicating a potential suburban disaster, not utilised to sharpen the warning and alert system of the ACT community?

Mr Speaker, one of the areas of disappointment for me in this inquiry-and I stress again that I find this inquiry generally useful-is that it does not follow through on these vital questions, the questions that I have just listed, and this question as well: why did the government hesitate, on 18 January 2003, to call a state of emergency, resulting in the official warning coming a short time before the first houses in Duffy were destroyed by fire? What were the strategic decisions taken on that day and the three days prior to that? These were issues fundamental to the outcomes of the

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