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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1765 ..

Services. Then, to conceal these failings, he willingly misled the public—just like so many other flawed politicians who have been brought to justice by the scrutiny of parliaments.

This is the first occasion on which the full story of Mr Stanhope’s actions—actions that led him to mislead the Assembly—is being debated in this place. The story does not begin on January 18, 2003; it goes back to the preceding year. Bushfires that were then considered remarkable struck the ACT at Christmas 2001. The Stanhope government had recently come to office and Mr Quinlan was the minister for emergency services. Significant amounts of public property were destroyed in that fire. The fires led to a coronial inquiry that was still underway the following summer. As this government went into the summer of 2002 it had no grounds for treating bushfire as a distant political problem.

With a second drought summer the indications for bushfires were stronger than ever. As many of us know all too well, Voices in the Wilderness had been warning that the ACT’s bushland was growing more fire prone with every passing year. The wake-up call came in December—at Christmas 2001. In early December 2002 Mr Stanhope reshuffled his ministry and Mr Wood became emergency services minister. New relationships were urgently needed between ministers and senior officials. The people of Canberra were entitled to expect that Mr Wood receive thorough preparation from his emergency services officials.

Then, on 8 January 2003, lightning struck. We now know the history of the development of the fires in the days that followed. We have all seen the explosion of colour on the time series maps. We know that firefighters realised very quickly that what was happening was a problem of alarming potential. And we know, tragically, that the effort to tackle the fire was failing. Whatever fault may be found in individuals—and we will leave that scrutiny to the coroner—there could be no doubt that the situation was slipping rapidly out of control.

By Thursday 16 January the ministers of this government were all too well aware of what was happening. At a historic and perhaps unprecedented special meeting of cabinet they were briefed by the city’s senior officials. Apparently it was Mr Wood rather than the Chief Minister who summoned this meeting, possibly at the suggestion of the chief executive responsible for community safety—Mr Keady. This in itself is highly significant. The accounts we have been given show Mr Stanhope as more of a passenger than the captain—an element of his character and his behaviour that has led us to this debate today, as we shall see.

The ministers have since given differing accounts of the meaning this cabinet meeting held for them. In some ways their different explanations are about divesting themselves of any appearance of fault. But two things are clear: firstly, the ministers were thoroughly advised of the developing disaster and of the need for leadership. The second thing that is clear is that the ministers did nothing—nothing at all. We are told that this is because they saw nothing additional that they could do.

To avoid the impression of complete neglect we have been told that, at this meeting, the ministers moved into some heightened state of readiness. But what exactly are we to take this to mean? It must mean, at the very least, that the minister for emergency services

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