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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1780 ..

Emergency Services Bureau executive director Mike Castle said last night the situation was serious, as efforts turn from trying to control the fires to protecting property.

The article goes on to directly quote Mr Castle as saying:

It’s the worst conditions we’ve ever had. Normally there might be adverse conditions for 24 hours and then something changes. This looks like continuing for three or four days

That was the view of Mr Castle on Friday night: “This looks like continuing for three or four days.”

Further in the article we find quotes from the Chief Fire Control Officer, Mr Peter Lucas-Smith, which state—and these are Mr Peter Lucas-Smith’s views on Friday evening:

The threat from the conditions over the next few days is going to be quite significant for our firefighters on the fire line.

And again, Mr Lucas-Smith, talking about the firefighting effort in the days ahead of the Friday evening, is reported as saying:

The fires have been very difficult to control,” Mr Lucas-Smith said. “We’ve got our containment lines in, we’re working from those and the conditions are certainly going to make it a fairly arduous task over the next four or five days.

No sense of imminent disaster is conveyed in this article. This is the same information that was being presented to the government. I was not presented with a different set of facts.

It is inconceivable that I was provided with a warning, or that I was alarmed in any way and didn’t respond. It is simply inconceivable that I, as the Chief Minister and acting minister for emergency services, if I had been warned or alarmed, or if issues had been raised that demanded my attention, would not have responded. I would have responded immediately. I would have responded automatically.

The one assumption I can make is that the assessments of the fire situation that had been previously conveyed to me and to my colleagues persisted at that time on the Saturday morning. There is simply no basis for assuming anything else—none. Any other assumption is to assume that I would be derelict, that I would disregard my obligations, that I would be totally insensitive to the people of Canberra—and that is simply inconceivable.

I said earlier that, having reviewed my statements and evidence, I came to the view that I had not misled the coroner’s inquiry. I am still of that view. However, I felt it an obligation to inform the coroner of the lapse of my memory revealed by my telephone records.

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