Page 61 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 February 2007
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How did he fail? Even though, two days before it happened, he knew that it was very likely that the fires would reach the urban edge of Canberra, he failed to tell the community about it. He failed generally in his duty to the community, he failed in his duty to those who lost homes, and he failed in his duty to those who died. There should have been a timely warning, and there simply was not.
Two days before the fire, the cabinet was briefed. The coroner says that Mr Stanhope knew then that there was a potential disaster on the city’s doorstep, but did nothing to ensure that the community was promptly and effectively warned. Has there ever been a more serious finding against a minister in the ACT? There was a potential disaster on the city’s doorstep, but the Chief Minister did nothing to ensure that the community was warned.
How does Mr Stanhope respond to this? He said in evidence:
I had not at that stage developed, if I might call it, a mindset or an understanding of the nature of the fire that left me with any serious sense of alarm … I don’t think that it had occurred to me at that stage there was any possibility that the fire would cause damage within the suburbs of Canberra. I simply had not reached that state of understanding. I did not have that mindset.
What an unbelievable statement. The Chief Minister’s alibi is that he simply did not understand what was going on, that he could not comprehend the advice that was coming to him—he did not understand it; he was not up to it. He did not think to ask simple questions like “What is the worst-case scenario?”, “When might we need to warn people?” or “How could this turn out?” He was the people’s representative in those meetings and he was not up to the task.
That is despite what Mr Corbell told us today about this new doctrine of ministerial responsibility: leave it to the experts; leave it to the others; do not ask questions. Do not ask questions? You may as well go on holiday.
After an exhaustive investigation, the coroner found that the cabinet was aware of the likelihood that the fires would reach the suburbs. Based on this finding and the Chief Minister’s defence, we can only conclude one of two things: he was not up to it because he simply did not understand the advice coming to him, or he was not up to it because he understood the advice but chose to do nothing about it. Either way, he was not up to it.
The coroner backs this assessment, finding that Mr Stanhope “either misunderstood or deliberately downplayed the seriousness of the situation”. Essentially the coroner concludes that he was either incompetent or deceitful. The Chief Minister claims that the coroner is wrong, but who are we to believe here? We have a Chief Minister who has had a very selective memory during this process—a very up-and-down memory. He is a man who can not remember anything that happened on the morning of the bushfires. He cannot remember a six-minute phone call. He cannot remember this phone call. Using his own self-diagnosis, he claims that even under hypnosis he probably would not be able to remember this phone call. Yet he seems to have a detailed recollection of the cabinet briefing on the 16th. We have got a man with a
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