Page 34 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Chief Minister’s Department, Mr Robert Tonkin, two of the ACT’s then most senior public servants.
Is the Leader of the Opposition suggesting that each of these individuals is afflicted by a faulty memory or, worse, that each of us is a liar, that every member of the cabinet lied, that the head of the Chief Minister’s Department lied, that the head of the Department of Justice and Community Safety lied—is that what the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting?—and that the coroner, who was not at that cabinet meeting and cannot have known what was said and what was not said, is correct in her suppositions?
Interestingly, the coroner’s assertions as to what cabinet must have been told on that day are strangely at odds with what, elsewhere in her report, she accepts as expert opinion on fire behaviour. On page 350 of volume I the coroner quotes expert witness Phil Cheney as stating that the central fire moved very quickly, “maintaining a rate of spread of 20 kilometres an hour, which is the fastest documented rate of spread of a forest fire anywhere to my knowledge”.
The coroner goes on to record Mr Cheney as saying that the fact that the phenomenon occurred and the speed with which the resultant fire moved had been a “complete surprise” to him. Let us think about that for a minute. The coroner’s own expert witness says that the firestorm took him by “complete surprise”, and the coroner evidently accepts that as reasonable. Yet she simultaneously concludes that the ACT cabinet must have been forewarned of a disaster which took her expert by complete surprise.
I am no expert in firefighting, Mr Speaker. I had no reason to doubt the advice of the ACT Emergency Services Bureau, either at that cabinet briefing or afterwards. What sort of a strange, presumptuous creature would I have been to assume that I, with no professional expertise in the area, knew better than a group of professionals that had successfully fought a major fire in the recent past? It would have been absurd of me to do so, particularly in the absence of any suggestion that the approach these professionals were taking was unwise, unsafe or ineffective.
Moreover, I am sure the Leader of the Opposition, having carefully and thoughtfully followed the entire coronial process, would be aware of the statement in the court made by counsel assisting the coroner, Lex Lasry QC, that he did not submit that it was the responsibility of the cabinet to warn the people of Canberra. It seems that in this instance the coroner chose to ignore the “assistance” rendered by counsel assisting her.
I will not resort to cliches about the advantages of hindsight, but I will say that there are sometimes reasons why phrases become cliches. It is because they have the penetrating force of truth and common sense. My colleagues across the chamber today have hindsight on their side. So did the coroner. So do those who, in the four years since the fires, have come out publicly and protested that they knew that disaster was imminent, that they read the portents and that they could have done better. I did not have the luxury of hindsight in 2003 and I cannot call it to my assistance today.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .