Report into Victorian bushfires tabled

The stay or go policy is too "simplistic" and should be overhauled to include a focus on emergency evacuations during bushfires, the final report into the Black Saturday disaster says.

Changes to the controversial stay or go policy were among a raft of wide-ranging
recommendations included in the long-awaited report, which also suggests appointing
a fire commissioner in Victoria to oversee emergencies and promote much-needed
reform.
The commissioners made 67 recommendations in their four-volume, 900-page report
handed to Premier John Brumby and tabled in the Victorian parliament on Saturday.
In a stark admission, Mr Brumby acknowledged that systems put in place after
previous bushfire disasters in Australia including the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires,
failed on Black Saturday.
"All of the steps that were put in place after the Ash Wednesday fires, all of the
work of successive governments ... the reality is that on Black Saturday 2009 those
systems failed and 173 lives were lost," Mr Brumby told reporters.
The stay or go policy was considered to be among the most contentious issues to be
raised in the final report, but there was no recommendation to abandon it as
anticipated.
Commission chairman Bernard Teague and commissioners Susan Pascoe and Ron McLeod
said key elements of the policy "remain sound".
But the commissioners said `stay or go' was too simplistic and didn't help many
people on the day.
They urged the state government to provide more options for people faced with fire
danger, including planning for emergency evacuations which would be carried out by
police and ordered by incident controllers in charge of fires.
Community fire refuges and bushfire shelters should also be available, with the
commissioners criticising the government for dragging its feet in these areas.
"The commission is concerned that the state's reluctance is reflected in the slow
progress with community refuges and bushfire shelters," the report stated.
One of the biggest changes foreshadowed in the report is the recommendation to
appoint a fire commissioner who would become the most senior fire officer in the
state.
The fire commissioner's responsibilities would be to spearhead reform but also
direct the chief officers of all the fire agencies on extreme and code red fire
days.
In other changes, the current system of having the emergency services minister - a
politician - ultimately in charge during major bushfires should be dropped and
replaced with the state's police chief.
The commissioners said the actions of then police chief Christine Nixon, who left
the control centre on the night of the fires to have dinner, were "inadequate".
Police and Emergency Services Minister Bob Cameron acted properly but he should have
considered advising the premier to declare a state of disaster, the commissioners
said.
Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu quickly committed to implementing all the report's
recommendations if the coalition is elected to government in the November state
election.
But Mr Brumby has raised questions over whether his party will go that far.
The government will consult with the community for weeks before deciding what
aspects it will implement.
He said the government would provide an interim response to the report this week and
a full response "within weeks".
"As the premier I feel the full weight of responsibility to make sure that we get
our response to the commission's report right," Mr Brumby said.
Gary Brown, who lost his son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren in Kinglake,
said the report was too vague and gives the government the room to avoid
implementing many of the recommendations.
"To me it's a wishy washy outcome. It gives them a very easy way of saying `this is
all too hard' or `this is going to cost too much money'."
In other recommendations, the state's ageing electricity infrastructure should be
progressively replaced, or the community faced the risk of more fires starting from
faulty powerlines.
People living in fire risk areas should be able to sell their property to the state
under a "retreat and resettlement" strategy, while fuel reduction burns must be
doubled, the commissioners recommended.
Planning laws should also be amended to ensure housing development in high-risk
bushfire areas is substantially restricted.
The commissioners did not consider radical reform of the fire agencies was needed by
moving to a single agency, but reiterated the need for the Country Fire Authority
(CFA) and Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) to work together much
more seamlessly.