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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4241 ..

bushfire and weather intelligence available from 16 January 2003 determining there was a high probability a major fire impact on suburbia would occur within days.

What else should have happened? From 16 January 2003, the ACT government should have been broadcasting general warnings to the entire ACT community of a high likelihood of impact along the suburban fringe. Additionally, the government should have been from that day broadcasting specific warnings to vulnerable suburbs and providing specific warnings on residential preparations, including placing people on notice for phased evacuations. Additionally, the ACT government should have been directing its emergency services, including the police, to visit the vulnerable suburbs to ensure residents were in no doubt of the very high threat levels and ensuring they were as well prepared as possible.

But none of these things happened. No action occurred. It was as if the vicious little December 2001 fire had never occurred, as if the alarming lessons arising from that fire had never been acknowledged by the government, particularly in respect of media, communications, warning systems and procedures. Those 2001 lessons were never applied in 2002 in preparation for the next bushfire season.

Yes, the fire was unstoppable by 18 January 2003. The government cannot be blamed for that, but the deaths and losses may have been minimised if the government had acted properly to warn the community from 16 or even from 17 January, and the government failed. The government failed to take action; they failed the community. The Chief Minister, as acting emergencies minister, was mysteriously out of the loop on 17 January and 18 January; he was not alert; he had failed to maintain an inquiring mind. At best, he failed to question his ESB officers on what situation had actually developed. At worst, he failed to warn the community properly.

It has been entirely proper for the opposition to ask the Chief Minister to be transparent about his actions, his duties, during this extremely critical period—his own and his government’s. Things went horribly wrong in the governing of the territory with respect to the management of the unfolding disaster. The community must know what went wrong and the community must know exactly what must be done to rectify the failures in the emergency management system. (Extension of time granted.)

Now, in 2004, there have been significant steps taken to get to that point, but right through 2003 very little occurred. There are still many unanswered questions.

Mr Quinlan: Many, according to you, mate.

MR PRATT: There are a hell of a lot of questions yet to be answered. It is our duty—it is the opposition’s duty—to question the government about this and we will continue to do so. There are a lot of unanswered questions about what failings occurred in 2003 and indeed in 2002 and what steps must be taken to make sure that we can go as far as we can to protect our community.

I call on this Assembly to support this motion that calls on the Chief Minister to inform all members by close of business today exactly where he was on the evening of 17 January 2003 and why he was unable to take telephone calls. As I said before, if the Chief Minister had urgent personal matters to attend to that kept him away from his

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