Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4240 ..

on this side of the chamber, on all the evidence available that we see tabled in the coroner’s inquest—forget about McLeod, because McLeod was a spectacular failure of governance, another failure of leadership which can be tied back to the Chief Minister—and on the truckloads of anecdotal and formal information provided to people in the community and to the opposition, that it is a bit of both. The Chief Minister failed both to inquire deeply to determine the real situation in those days leading up to the 18th and to be open with the community, to warn them, to keep the community warned and to keep the community alert.

The Chief Minister’s handling of expert advice is a salutary indication of his failure of leadership and so too his handling of expert advice into what had actually gone wrong after the disaster. An examination of the Chief Minister’s poor management of the available advice from a range of experts in the community is clearly illustrated when we look at the Phil Cheney case, both before and after the disaster. Looking at this is quite salutary in terms of the failures of responsibility of the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister’s peculiar attitude toward Mr Cheney mirrors the Chief Minister’s negligent handling of the bushfire disaster.

On 19 November last year, I had occasion to congratulate Mr Cheney on an award for his contribution in the area of bushfire management. We took the opportunity to congratulate Mr Cheney on his award and formally acknowledged his work in the area of bushfire behaviour and management, because the government had not. I pointed out that, unlike our highly knowledgeable Chief Minister, the Liberal opposition knew and recognised, as a lot of other people in the community did, Mr Cheney’s expertise and contribution in this area.

Mr Speaker, in Hansard of 21 October 2003, the Chief Minister answered a question without notice from me:

I have no recollection of having ever met or heard of Mr Cheney until some months ago … I have no memory of ever having heard the name Phil Cheney, ever having met him, or ever hearing of any conversations that he may or may not have had.

The Chief Minister seemed confused about Mr Cheney. He said to Mr Cornwell, in fact in this place during question time, that he did not know that Mr Cheney existed until a few weeks prior; yet the same day he had said to me that he had no recollection of ever having met or heard of Mr Cheney until some months prior. That is pretty cavalier treatment of a very important expert and very clearly illustrates the lack of grasp that the Chief Minister had on analysing the situation in the period leading up to the fire.

The Chief Minister’s ignorance about Mr Cheney, the Jefferys, the Campbells and other experienced rural bushfire experts, who were yelling their warnings in 2002 and then in the final days before the disaster, reflect the muddled management on the part of the Chief Minister. He refused expert advice from people who, he was told by those running the show, were out of touch; that is, they no longer belonged to the club.

Where did we as a community get to? What should have happened? A broad range of community experts and experienced people in the emergency services community, living on the land and from other government agencies, really believed that there was sufficient

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .