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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2962 ..
MR SMYTH (continuing):
be forgotten participants in this whole sorry affair with no-one game enough to seek our input. The views of the volunteer seem to emanate from ACT Emergency Services Bureau management, not the volunteers.
He makes some personal comments about some identities, and I am not going to repeat them, but his final line reads:
Put our views on the public record for all to see. It is my belief that a backlash from volunteers is building momentum and I am certainly an active supporter of such a move.
(Extension of time granted.) I spoke with this individual and he came back on 8 August, two days later, and said:
I am becoming aware by talking with and listening to people that there are many unhappy, irritated and sometimes angry volunteers out there that would like to be heard by ESB, the ACT government and the community, and I include myself in all three categories. I am simply one of a group of people who each year serve their community by pulling on a set of overalls and getting in harm's way. I believe that we as a group, a large group, have a lot to give this process and fear that without strong and vocal representation we will simply be spectators.
That was from an individual firefighter over a couple of days. Another one also wrote to me. His first email came on 30 July, and reads:
Hi, Brendan, how are things going? I saw you on the television the other night making comments in relation to Jon Stanhope's remarks about the findings of the inquiry up to this point. I was pleased to see someone taking a stance against the line that the Chief Minister would have the general public believe.
He then makes some comments about some identities and I am not going to go into that. He went on to say:
As to the suggestion that with better training the outcome may have been different, you'd have to agree that everyone we know or worked with regardless of brigade certainly put in the effort and was professional in every way. I don't believe our level of training, competency or commitment was ever questioned and I certainly don't think any ACT brigades let anyone down. You may not read their comments as suggesting this, but I do know many who do.
The problem is the lack of communication from the government. The government is simply saying, "All is well. We've taken responsibility and accepted some recommendations. Let's move on."It is leaving people behind. The group that they are most leaving behind is the volunteers. The email went on to say:
If the brigades had been allowed to attack those fires immediately in their own way, there may well have been a substantially different outcome. My experience, of which you also have plenty, tells me that if the brigades had been allowed to go into the hills immediately or first thing the next day Southern would have gone, Geyser's Creek would have been hot on our heels, as would have been Rivers and Jerra. If anything was amiss last January it was the ability of those in charge to make a decision. ESB allowed five fires to burn within containment lines unchecked indefinitely, containment lines that only existed because of
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